


The Next Generation

by LittleMissNack



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 64,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissNack/pseuds/LittleMissNack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Albus Potter, Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy, and the countless adventure's they get into in there years at Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1 Chapter 1

"Aren't you afraid … at ALL!?" Albus asked his cousin Rose

"No I'm not. I KNOW there's NO way I'M not getting sorted into slytherin and I know you're not either so stop worrying you won't be slytherin" Rose sighed

"Not fans of Slytherin eh?" a voice said from the door way of the carriage. It was him the boy Rose's dad had warned them about Scorpius. Rose remembered what her father had told her about getting close to him so she turned her head towards the window ignoring Scorpius completely.

"Aren't you afraid of being in Slytherin?" Albus asked the boy

"My whole family was slytherin so I'm not betting on being anything else" Scorpius mumbled

"Come on Al lets go find another carriage" Rose said staring at the boy coldly

"Do you have a problem with me or something?" Scorpius asked confused.

"Rose what's wrong?" Al asked

"Don't you remember what my dad said about him!?" Rose asked Albus. Scorpius chuckled

"Oh I understand Daddy's warned you to stay away from a Malfoy. And you wouldn't want to disobey Daddy. I bet you do everything daddy says" Scorpius chuckled

"Do Not!" Rose said angrily

"Bet you do, you're a daddy's girl aren't you!" Scorpius said. Rose scowled

"Come on Al can we PLEASE find another carriage I don't want to be around the likes of him!" Rose said

"You don't even know me all you know is my name!" Scorpius said

"Albus Severus Potter! Are we leaving or not!?" Rose exclaimed angrily ignoring Scorpius.

"Oh so you're the famous Harry Potters' son! Bet your after the fame aren't you freckles" Scorpius said to Rose who had always been insecure about her freckles.

"HE'S MY COUSIN!" Rose shouted before grabbing Albus by the wrist and dragging him out of the carriage.

"Rose, where are we going?" Albus asked as she grabbed his wrist tighter and dragged his further down the hall

"To find our cousins!" Rose said.

The eventually arrived at a carriage with 2 girls in. One of the girls was wearing their Hogwarts robes the same as Rose. But the other was dressed casually. The youngest of the girls again had ginger hair with a butterfly hair clip in the back she looked to be 11 and was the only other one wearing her Hogwarts robes she looked scared and nervous the other girl had black hair and looked to be 12 she had her arm around the youngest and was wearing a denim skirt and a pink T-shirt with the weird sisters on it. These people where Rose and Albus' cousins Lucy(the youngest), Molly (the elder).

"Hey Rose, Hey Al" Molly said

"Hey Moll, hey Luce" Albus greeted. Rose just sat down sat down still angrily.

"What's the matter with her?" Molly asked

"she got into a fight with a boy about nothing" Albus sighed

"It wasn't nothing! There was a reason I was supposed to stay away from him Al or else dad wouldn't have asked me!" Rose explained

"Scorpius is right you know you ARE a Daddy's girl" Albus said obviously annoyed

"I AM NOT!" Rose said defensively

"Um.. It's kind of true Rose" Molly said Rose scowled

"Even if I was it was NONE of his business!" Rose scowled at stormed out by herself.

"This is going to be a fun year" Albus sighed

The rest of the train ride was long and boring, Rose stayed in a compartment by herself and Albus stayed with his cousins. When the train finally arrived at Hogwarts Albus nervously stepped off and looked through the big crowd for Rose.

"Al! Albus!" he herd Rose's voice exclaim he turned around to find her making her way through a crowd to him

"Hi, how was the rest of the train ride?" Rose asked

"Okay, a bit boring you?"

"It was much better when we left that boy, I read most of the way" Rose explained, Albus sighed

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" he said sarcastically as they made their way towards the boats. Al and Rose stepped into the closest one. Rose sat at the front and Albus sat behind

"Hey mind if I join you?" they herd the familiar voice of Scorpius Malfoy, Albus looked at his cousin and saw her scowling viciously at him. Albus sighed.

"Of course you can" Albus said Scorpius stepped in and decided it was better to sit by Albus seeing as Rose already hated him enough.

"Don't mind Rose, she really is a daddy's girl. Don't take anything she say personally" Albus told Scorpius, for a moment Scorpius looked at Albus confused then he slightly smiled

"Thanks, Is she always this… judgmental?" Scorpius finally decided on the right word

"No, she just listens to everything her dad says, but it can't last forever or at least I hope it won't" Albus explain Scorpius smiled

"So if not Slytherin which house do you want to be in?" Scorpius asked

"Well my brothers in Gryffindor and that doesn't seem so bad, neither does Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw" Albus said thoughtfully

"You're so lucky you still have options!" Scorpius sighed

"Don't you want to be in Slytherin?" Albus asked confused, his father had told him about the Malfoys' he said they prided themselves in being pureblood's and all slytherin, If he didn't look so much like his father you might not have even believed he was a Malfoy

"Well I want to impress my dad, but I'm not like him I don't want to be a Slytherin" Scorpius sighed.

"Oh yes I'm sure you're going to break the Malfoy stereotype." Rose scoffed sarcastically. Scorpius stayed silent. The rest of the boat ride was rather awkward and uncomfortable.

Finally they arrived at the Castle. Out of all of them Rose was the most excited she had been waiting to see that castle for AGES and she was right there. All the first years stared in awe of the beautiful castle and as they all walked inside everyone stared in amazement at everything, they arrived in the hall in a huddle.

"Right student when I call your name you will come forth and sit on the stool and I will place the sorting hat on your head and you will be sorted into your houses, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Gryffindor." the deputy head, professor Longbottom said. He began calling the list

"Morgan Apperly" he called. He stepped forward and sat on the stool

"RAVENCLAW" the hat called out he went and sat with the rest of the cheering Ravenclaws' the list continued

"Hydra Dean" Professor Longbottom called out. She sat down nervously and the hat was placed on her head

"SLYTHERIN" The hat called out quite quickly. Hydra walked over to the happy Slytherins'

"Scorpius Malfoy" Professor Longbottom said. Albus saw the Slytherins' looking at each other smugly knowing fully well where Scorpius would be sorted. The hat was placed on Scorpius' head, it took quite a while deciding where Scorpius should go.

"GRYFFINDOR" the hat finally shouted out. The whole hall stayed silent Scorpius stayed on the stool for a few seconds longer than he should have. Eyes wide in shock. Before finally slowly getting up the Gryffindors' started cheering while the Slytherins scowled.

"Albus Potter"

Albus nervously walked up to the stool shaking. The whole room went silent staring at him Albus took a seat on the stool and the hat was dropped on his messy black hair

Ah another Potter, I expect you want to be in Gryffindor too

Albus thought for a moment if he said yes that's where he would be but he would never truly know where he would belong

Second thoughts eh potter?

"Put me where I truly belong" Albus though to the hat

Are you sure? You're the only Potter that's let me decide! Hmm brave, but smart too, determined to prove yourself, and extremely loyal you could do well in every house are you sure you don't want to decide?

"I want to be where I would do best" Albus insisted

Alright then "GRYFFINDOR!"

There was an outburst of cheering from the Gryffindor table mainly from James, Albus' brother and Scorpius Albus' new friend. Albus sat down opposite Scorpius. More names got called out until only Rose was left.

"Rose Weasley" Professor Longbottom called. Rose walked up there as confident as ever.

"How much do you want a bet she's in Slytherin?" Scorpius whispered

"hmm quite high" Albus said. The hat took some time with her before finally shouting out

"GRYFFINDOR"

The Gryffindors cheered. Even Scorpius clapped lightly.

"LET THE FEAST BEGIN" the headmaster professor Harlow announced

"Come on were even late for our first breakfast let alone our first class!" Albus exclaimed as he and Scorpius ran down the staircase and into the hall. Albus took a seat next to his cousin Rose Weasley who was sitting eating her breakfast being Hermione Granger-Weasley's daughter she was obviously the first one their quarter or an hour before everyone else.

"Albus you're 10 minutes late!" Rose exclaimed throwing a snide glance at Scorpius as if it was all his fault. He took a seat opposite Al and Rose.

"Have the Owls came yet?" Al asked

"No your lucky there late today!" Rose sighed. Just as she spoke a flutter of owls rushed through the window in an adrenalin filled second they scattered across the room determined to drop their heavy loads and rush pack through the window for their pay of one mice per parcel. A snowy white owl glided smoothly across the Gryffindor table dropping the letters onto Albus' seat another tawny owl and another barn owl followed behind and dropped letters on Rose and Scorpius' places. Onto of Scorpius' small pile of letters was a shiny smooth blood red sharp edged envelope with a black bow tied tightly vertically across it. Scorpius' scowl changed to a look of terror and disbelief, his crystal blue eyes changed from their cool state to much wider and concerned state, but not concern for anyone else just his health. Suddenly a thunderous crash brought Scorpius' attention away from the letter and onto the snowy white owl in a heap next to the door that it had just flew into

"Bloody Bird" Al sighed as the owl slowly began to fly away and all attention was brought back to the envelope.

"What's that?" Amile Dursley asked

"It's a howler, it's a letter sent from wizard of witch to one another to complain, yell or HOWL at each other." Rose commented not looking up from her newspaper.

"Open it!" Morgan Apperly urged. Scorpius looked at Albus with a frightened glance Albus shrugged and Scorpius slowly began to pull the sides of the black ribbon and all in a flash of a second the letter sprang to life and jumped into the shape of a mouth.

"HOW DARE YOU!" an angry voice bellowed causing Scorpius to lean backwards as the mouth came towards him.

"100'S OF GENEREATIONS OF YOUR ANNSESTORS HAVE ALL BEEN SLYTHERIN AND YOU MY OWN SON DIS-HONER THEM BY BEEING A GRYFFINDOR I MEAN EVEN A HUFFLEPUFF WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER! YOU ARE NOT FIT TO WEAR THE NAME OF MALFOY! IF YOU THINK YOUR COMEING HO-"

"HE IS OUR SON AND HE IS COMEING HOME TO US EVEN IF HE IS A GRYFFINDOR!" Scorpius' mother bellowed loudly to his father.

"BUT…"

"NO BUT'S DRACO!" Scorpius' mother screamed so loud and piercing that it caused to howler to explode and shower Scorpius with red paper dust.

"Oh look it's a letter from mum and dad their PROUD of me" Rose said snidely opening her own letters.

"That's because your family have no standards!" Scorpius shouted in pain and ran off.

"Oh look at the goody goody!" Jasper Zabinie snarled

"He can't be a REAL Malfoy they properly never told him he was adopted" Sienna Vane chucked evilly

"Or If he is he will be soon. didn't you hear the howler? His father's not going to want him back!" Jasper said Scorpius crossed his arms and placed his head in them. Albus who was sitting next to him and had turned very red at Sienna's comment, glared at them then turned to Scorpius

"Just ignore them your better than they are" Albus said.

"Aw Young Love" Jasper said smiling maliciously. Sienna burst out laughing with Jasper until Rose gave them a scary glance and they both decided to shut up as they valued their health and Rose was considerably more scary than Albus. Professor Longbottom pushed opened the door and speed walked down the aisle between the two long Herbology work benches and was almost at the end but he tripped over the watering can and fell into a heap on the floor. Everyone burst into laughter except Rose and Scorpius who rushed forward to help him up. once Professor Longbottom had recovered Rose glanced evilly at Scorpius who sighed.

"Oh look he's helping his 'ikle teacher. Next thing you know he'll be giving him apples." Sienna whispered to Jasper mimicking a babies voice, only loud enough for Scorpius to hear and scowl at.

"Right Class, we'll take attendance" Said Professor Longbottom.

"Melinda, Abbot?"

"Here"

"Ellen Bones"

"Yes Sir"

"Amile Dursley?"

"Yes" Amile said in a ungrateful manner. Albus would never admit it but he hated his second cousin being a witch almost as much as her grandparents did, Her being a witch would mean he would see the spoilt brat every day and once a year was already bad enough. The register continued

"Scorpius, Malfoy?"

"Here sir" Scorpius said he could see the look of disbelief when Neville saw the G next to his name instead of an S for his house.

"Albus, Potter?" Neville asked looking around excitedly

"Here N… Professor" Al said turning red he didn't want anyone especially the Slytherins that he knew one of the professors outside of school.

"Sienna, Vane?" Professor Longbottom called

"Yes Sir" Sienna said in an annoying high pitch that was her voice

"Rose, Weasley?"

"Present Sir" Rose said in a heavenly childlike voice that made people believe that she was as sweet as sugar. A few sighs of annoyance came out as they herd Rose sucking up already.

"And Jasper, Zabinie?" Neville finally finished off

"Yes"

"Right Now class this is a simple little plant that can cause severe illness. Does anyone know how we produce the charm that causes illness?" Professor Longbottom asked. Rose immediately raised her hand high in the air, waving it like it was a life or death situation, which Rose may have thought it was. So far she was the only one with her hand up, but then slower and not as high up Scorpius' hand raised too. However this only made Rose more determined to answer the question.

"Mr. Malfoy?" Neville decided.

"Well underneath the plant a bean grows that contains fluid that if drank can cause severe illness" Scorpius said timidly.

"Oh look at the goody goody Gryffindor" Jasper sneered quietly to Sienna. Scorpius tried to ignore them but it didn't help that if he looked the other way Rose was giving him such a sharp evil look that the expression 'if looks could kill' immediately sprang to mind.

"Very good Mr. Malfoy, now today I'm going to be splitting you into pairs and you will attempt to extract the bean carefully" Neville demonstrated the proper way to do it and explained all the health and safety guidelines.

"Right partners will be as followed Melinda and Sienna, Jasper and Ellen, Albus and Amile, Freya and Cole, Rose and Scorpius…." Neville continued the list of partners but already Scorpius felt sick and Rose's fists were clenched so tight Scorpius was surprised she hadn't hurt herself.

"Okay everyone get with your partners" Rose glared at Scorpius fiercely

"She's harmless really" Albus attempted to reassure Scorpius

"Sure! As harmless as a mountain lion!" Scorpius reluctantly trudged over to his partner.

"Right! Let's get a few things straight right now. I'm doing all the work as I am the smartest and you can simply write down everything I do. Can you handle that or is it too much for your little brain to handle?" Rose said her blue eyes furiously glaring and her mouth fixed in a permanent scowl. Scorpius dared to glare back.

"What makes you think your smarter than me!?" Scorpius demanded.

"The fact that I've been studying ready to go to Hogwarts since I was 6!"

"And you think I haven't!? I'M going the work, YOU write." Scorpius said boldly, daring to take a step forward. Rose laughed sarcastically

"Don't make laugh! I'd rather not fail!" Rose snapped taking another step forward

"Good so it's settled, I'm doing the work" Scorpius confidently stepped forward again.

"I'm not having a MALFOY do my work!"

"Oh and I really want a WEASLEY doing mine!" Scorpius said sarcastically. They both stepped forward again and were now less than an inch apart, glaring sharply at each other. Scorpius raised his hand.

"Professor is there any way we could switch partners?" Scorpius asked, not taking his eyes of Rose.

"I'm sorry Mr. Malfoy no swapping" Scorpius then broke eye contact and stormed off out of the room slamming the door.


	2. Chapter 2

After a meeting with the headmaster professor Harlow, he and professor Longbottom, who was head of Gryffindor, had decided that 20 points off Gryffindor and a serious warning were appropriate punishments, Plus a months’ worth of detention with professor Longbottom. Rose was more smug than ever which put Albus is a difficult position, but he had a plan. Every time they got into an argument Albus silently left without either of them noticing. But it was becoming increasingly more difficult as Rose and Scorpius had almost every class together and every time they so much as looked at each other an argument would break out. In herbology the partners they had been assigned in their first lesson became partners for the rest of the year making things very uncomfortable for everyone in the class, but professor Longbottom would not give in and insisted it would help them work together. They always competed, they competed to see who could do their part of the assignment best In herbology, who could answer the most questions in history of magic, who could perform the spell first in charms and who could make the best potion in potions class. And it’s fair to say each of them had their strengths, Rose was good at history of magic and charms and Scorpius exceeded at herbology and potions. The continued to compete at every subject they had together and they were both exceptional at all of them. However quiditch was the only subject that the first years hadn’t tried yet, and when the actual day to learn quiditch came Rose was still determined as ever to beat Scorpius at every subject.   
“Wow!” was all Albus Potter could say when he stepped out onto the wide quiditch pitch made up of freshly mown grass. You could almost taste the fear and anticipation that had been held in the pitch, and you could almost hear the roar of the fans as their house team caught the snitch.  
“It’s amazing” Scorpius gasped.  
“Right now class” Professor Stone announced as he turned from the front of the crowd to face them.   
“Line up next to the brooms I’ve set out on the ground, quickly now” everyone scrambled to find a good broom. Al and Scorpius picked two in the centre and Rose went opposite Albus.   
“Okay class what I would like you to do is put your right hand over your broom and say up, this will summon your broom to you” within a second the pitch was filled with people shouting ‘Up!’ as loud as they could. Only Albus and Scorpius got it first time, Rose stared at Scorpius with a look of pure disbelief, then hate and anger. Soon the whole class had summoned there brooms except Rose who was still frantically shouting at her broom, Scorpius sniggered.   
“Um… Miss Weasley maybe you should practice summoning your broom over there while the rest of us get to flying, I’ll come and check on you in a moment” Rose furiously grabbed her broom and stormed into the corner of the stands. By the end of the lesson both Scorpius and Albus got praised for their flying while Rose still hadn’t been able to summon her broom.  
“Better luck next time eh Freckles?” Scorpius smiled smugly as he walked past her to leave the pitch and return to the Gryffindor common room.

 

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, Albus and Scorpius played wizard chess while Rose sulked In her bedroom. Eventually it got pretty late and Al and Scorpius had to go to bed before curfew. Pretty soon Al and the rest of the Gryffindor boys were asleep except Scorpius who couldn’t sleep so he decided to read as he found reading at night often made him sleepy. So Scorpius took his current book out and snuck downstairs to the common room as there was too much snoring in the boys bedroom too notice. The sneaking out was easier than he imagined with all the boys asleep, so he sat down on the arm chair by the fire and continued reading. He was a few pages in when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, panicking he hugged his knee’s too his chest in an effort to hide on the armchair he was sitting on. He took a peak to see if it was a prefect or not and he saw a peculiar sight, long, bushy red hair sweeping out of the portrait hole. Rose Weasley? What’s she doing out after curfew? Scorpius wondered, he often found himself curious about Rose Weasley. His curiosity got the better of him and before he knew it he found himself following her down the staircases, past the hall, out through the school grounds and over the broom storage cupboard. That girl can’t stand being imperfect! Scorpius thought. After a few dozen ‘Ups’ she finally summoned her broom to her. She then mounted it and kick-started it. She began practicing turns and raising and lowering her broom. But suddenly her broom started getting out of control and before she knew it Rose’s broom was heading at full speed towards the stand Scorpius was hiding in. With a terrifying crash Scorpius watched as Rose fell quickly to the ground. Scorpius ran over to an unconscious Rose, and picked her up. He quickly ran with her to the infirmary.   
“What happened?” The healer asked rushing towards them. This was his chance he could finally get back at Rose, get her in trouble for sneaking out, surely Scorpius wouldn’t get in trouble for trying to protect her?  
“She was sleepwalking and then she fell down the stairs, I was the only one awake so I was the only one who heard anything.”   
“Right well I’ll take her from here” the healer said lifting Rose from Scorpius’ hands. “Get back to your dorm” Scorpius did but took a small detour through the quiditch pitch to but the broom back so there would be no suspicion in the morning.

 

He really didn’t know. Scorpius Malfoy was very smart yet for the life in him he just couldn’t figure it out. He really didn’t have a clue why he saved Rose Weasley, why he didn’t just tell on her when he had the chance. He knew he wouldn’t get in trouble if he explained that he was only out of bed to protect Rose. So it couldn’t have been fear of getting in trouble, what really confused him is that the thought of Rose’s face as professor Harlow expelled her made him feel protective of her, he would rather take the fall himself that see her in trouble. Maybe he just didn’t like the thought of people being upset? But he couldn’t imagine taking the fall for someone else. What made Rose Weasley so special? Why did he save her? Why didn’t he dob her in? These questions always seemed to run through his mind and he just couldn’t come up with any answers. The next morning he woke up extra early, he’d barely slept anyway he was so worried about her. He went straight to the infirmary   
“How is she?” Scorpius asked the healer while watching Rose sleep in her bed.   
“She’ll make a full recovery but I still have to fix her broken her arm and dislocated her shoulder but I have fixed her cuts.”   
“um… could you possibly do me a favour? Could you not tell her I brought her in?” Scorpius asked faintly  
“Of course I can Mr Malfoy, don’t you worry Miss Weasley will be better in no time”. 

 

Scorpius returned to the common room to inform Albus of his cousin misfortune.   
“Al! Rose had an accident” Scorpius rushed over to him in the common room.   
“What!?” Albus said in a panic. Suddenly 4 other Gryffindors from the common room rushed over.  
“What happened? Is she okay?” a tall boy who looked just like Albus said.   
“She’s fine, she was sleep walking in the night and fell down the stairs apparently but I didn’t hear” Scorpius said. Albus and his brother and cousins then piled out of the common room and of to the infirmary. For the next week Albus spent most of his time there after his classes. Scorpius went to see her too but only at night when she was asleep so the healers could inform him of how she was doing. He kept finding himself constantly worried out her. 

 

Rose was released from the infirmary after about 2 weeks. The healer informed Scorpius of her release date on one of his visiting nights. Scorpius had subconsciously been counting down the days ever since he’d found out, just so he could stop worrying about her. Over the 2 weeks she had been kept in because of her concussion Scorpius had considered telling her it was him who had found her. After all why was he so afraid of telling her the truth? He had nothing to hide! Did he?   
November 5th, the day Scorpius had been waiting for had arrived. Rose was getting out of the infirmary. For some absurd reason he woke up excited and ready to tell her the truth,, who knew maybe they could develop a friendship? Scorpius rushed downstairs but stopped 5 steps from the bottom when he saw her. She was surrounded by a crowd of Gryffindors including her cousins.   
“Oh my gosh Rose who saved you?” one of Rose’s friends Thalia Delvine asked  
“I don’t know the healers told me he’d chosen to remain a secret but they accidently mentioned it was a boy. He must really care about me to follow me to see if I was okay! The healers even said if he hadn’t have been there to save me I might have lost so much blood from my cuts that I could have died!” Rose exaggerated. “If I ever find out who saved me I’m going to love him forever!” She sighed.   
Scorpius froze then ran back upstairs, maybe it was best not to tell her.

You would have thought that after 4 weeks everyone would have found something more interesting than Rose Weasley getting a few cuts and a broken arm falling down the stairs to talk about. They did, but she didn’t. It was all she could talk about was how dangerous it was and how bad it could have been! And her saviour, she went on and on and on about her savour and how perfect he was. Truthfully Scorpius knew she’d just be disappointed if she found out it was him so he felt like he was doing her a kindness by leaving her to her fantasy’s. But the trouble with Rose Weasley is that you can’t do her a kindness without regretting it. And Scorpius sorely regretted it, by not telling her the truth her fantasy’s had run completely wild and EVERYONE was getting sick of hearing them, to the point that people fled if they saw her just so they wouldn’t have to hear her stories.   
Scorpius and Albus were studying in the library for a potions essay that was due tomorrow, they had intended to do it in the common room but when Rose had entered and begun repeating another theory about her saviour to her friend Thalia, who was the only one who wasn’t bored to death with theories yet, they had decided the library was a better place to go. They had both managed to get three quarters of the way through their essays when Scorpius heard her voice filling him with dread.  
“Albus, I was thinking that boy in your dormitory Callum Hanson, do you know if he was sleeping the night of my accident?” Rose asked. Scorpius and Albus sighed in synchronicity.  
“As I’ve told you every other time you’ve asked about every other boy in my dorm, I don’t know I was asleep” Albus said irritated  
“I know, I know but when you woke up was he still there?”  
“I don’t remember Rose it was 4 weeks ago, maybe it’s time you let it go and accept that you won’t find him” Albus said hopefully wondering when this would finally end  
“I can’t give up he’s out there somewhere and when I find him….”  
“OH FOR GOD SAKE IT WAS ME!” Scorpius finally shouted in frustration. The room went silent as Rose ran the idea through her head.  
“THERE! Know you’ve found him and he’s not what you want and he does NOT love you either so you can SHUT UP about it because god knows everyone so tired of hearing you go on and on and on about it and your giving me a headache!” Albus awkwardly put his book up to face pretending to be completely fascinated by it. It was annoying when they fought but this… this was just plain awkward!  
“that’s impossible, you’re lying you have to be!” Rose said quietly with tears in her eyes  
“I’m not, and you know how why? Because you didn’t fall down the stairs, you fell on the quiditch pitch after trying AGAIN to fly because you can’t stand to be bad at something!” Rose gasped the tears in her eyes filling up so much she had to blink them away.  
“Rose! That was stupid and extremely dangerous, why would you do that!?” Albus exclaimed. Rose ignored him her eyes transfixed on Scorpius  
“Why did you tell them I feel down the stairs then? This was your chance to get me back, why didn’t you take it?”   
“I still can’t figure that out because god knows you deserve it, but guess what princess you don’t have a knight in shining armour you just have a Malfoy who you hate, so congrats on your theories none of them are true” Scorpius grabbed his books and walked out. Rose looked around and finally noticed that the whole library had heard her they were all whispering and giggling. She knew it was only a matter of minutes before the whole school knew that nobody loved Rose Weasley and she’d just made the whole thing up. She had never been more embarrassed in her life, she ran out in tears and ran all the way up to the 7th floor corridor which was usually pretty quiet this time of day because no lessons were going on. She tried to sit down but she was so hurt and angry she just couldn’t help but pace.  
“Urgh! The nerve of him acting as if I OWE him something! I just need to get back at him that’s what I need! I mean embarrassing me like that and letting me believe there was someone who loved me! It’s cruel is what it is! If I could get back at him he’d still play the victim oh I WISH I could get back at him! Let everyone see what a pig he really is, a vile evil little pig! He NEEDS a taste of his own medicine and I need to give it to him!”   
Suddenly a door started to appear, Rose had studied every map of Hogwarts in existence and she’d never found this room before! She started at it for a few seconds before her curiosity got the better of her and she opened the door inside the door was a room, a simple little room with an arm chair next to the fire It looked like a cosy little living room and it reminded Rose of the burrows, her grandparents’ house that her and her cousins visited every summer. Rose was about to sit on the arm chair when she saw it. It was just sitting on the arm chair a beautiful gold hand mirror with wavy patterns engraved on the back. She picked it up and studied it, it really was the most magnificent object Rose had ever seen.   
“Hello” a slithery voice from inside the mirror said.


	3. Chapter 3

Staying out of Rose and Scorpius’ fights was beginning to become almost a specialty of Albus’ but this was different. He didn’t know what to do with this, on the one hand he was grateful to Scorpius for saving her life but on the other hand the public display in the library had everybody gossiping about Rose to the point that she was always hiding and he never got to see her except for classes, so he should be angry at Scorpius for embarrassing his cousin like that. It would just be so much easier for him if they could just agree to be civil for his sake, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.   
He tried to talk to Rose, to comfort her, but she just insisted she was busy and left. Albus just hoped this would all calm down soon, and in the meantime just had to try and continue staying in the middle of Scorpius and Rose.  
“Thank you” Albus said suddenly while walking down the stairs to Divination with Scorpius a week after the incident.  
“For what, the herbology homework? I told you it was fine it beats working with….”  
“No, for saving my cousin. I know you hate her but … thanks anyways. She’s too proud to ever say it but I’m sure she’s thankful to you too” Albus quickened his pace trying to keep up with Scorpius who had lost interest in the conversation.  
“No she’s not, I’m sure she’d rather still be unconscious on that quiditch pitch than be saved by me. She’s just so obnoxious and the way she acts like she’s better than anybody else it’s just so frustrating!”   
“Look I know you don’t like her but there’s more to her really. Maybe if you got to know her you’d see that and stop fighting, at least for my sake, being in between your fights is exhausting.” Albus pleaded. Scorpius sighed and rolled his eyes.  
“I know she’s your cousin and your required to stand up for her and she’s your friend as well so you probably believe she is all lovely and wonderful, but I’m not and I’m telling you I’ll never see anything good about her. Besides I don’t have a problem with her really, she has a problem with me!”   
“But can’t you just try to get along for my…”  
“Al!” Scorpius sighed cutting Albus off. “Even if I did forgive her for judging me and being so rude to me, there isn’t a spell in the world to get her to give me a chance. I’m sorry mate but Rose Weasley and I will never get along!”   
Albus sighed and took his seat in the last seat left free in class next to Thalia, knowing that this was the end of his argument with Scorpius. He did have a point, nothing could convince Rose to go against her father’s opinion. 

 

“Alright class, settle down today we will be looking at crystal balls and the prophecies they can process” Professor Hart said, placing two crystal balls on each table, one for each student.  
“Malfoy, Potter, Reese, Thomas, Vane…..Where’s miss Weasley?” Professor Hart asked while counting her students.  
“She was sick last period, so she went to the infirmary” Thalia Delvine, Rose’s best friend answered.  
“Very well, today we will be attempting to see if any of us can see a prophecy about their partner. We’ll start with you Mr Potter. Miss Delvine you grab the crystal ball, allow it to consume you, allow it to see into your sole, your past, your present and most importantly your future, open up to its powers.”   
Everyone giggled but Professor Hart didn’t seem to notice. Thalia held on tight to the crystal ball and closed her eyes concentrating hard on it.  
“She can’t seriously think it’s going to work can she?” Scorpius heard Sienna Vane whisper to Danielle Lawson.   
“I don’t know she is a total freak, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was that crazy” Danielle and Sienna giggled.  
“Alright now, do you feel you have opened yourself to its powers?” Professor Hart asked Thalia eagerly  
“Um…I think so” Thalia stuttered.  
“Right Albus, take the crystal ball off her and open your eyes to the future it holds!” Professor Hart exclaimed  
“Um… Miss, How exactly do I do that?” Everyone continued to giggle but this time Professor Hart seemed to notice  
“Now, there’s no need to laugh some people need a little more help than others!” Albus stared at her in frustration, they weren’t giggling at him until then. Now they were all laughing at him.  
“Mr Potter, close your eyes and tell me what you see from the crystal ball”  
Albus sceptically closed his eyes and waited for a while  
“I don’t see anything miss…” Professor Hart sighed.   
“Well we can’t all posse the gifts the crystal ball has to offer, let’s see about you miss Delvine. Mr Potter if you take this crystal ball and open your mind to it.”  
Albus took the crystal ball and half-heartedly focused on the crystal ball, as he did he felt the crystal ball get heavier in his hands. Until he felt the tips on Thalia’s fingers on his taking the crystal ball off him. The second the ball fell into the palms of her hands she screamed the most ear splitting scream any of the students had ever heard. Her eyes started to glow and she kept screaming like she was in pain  
“What’s wrong with her?”  
“What’s happened?”  
“Get it out of her hands!”  
The whole class was panicked now, but just as Professor Hart went to take the crystal ball she started speaking. It was a language none of them had ever heard before In a voice that defiantly wasn’t Thalia’s, but she spoke as if the words were hurting her, as if she was in pain. Then she started to speak in English but it was the same voice that was possessing her and she still spoke as if she was in pain, screaming the words.  
“Pride will consume the girl with greed, to the reflection of power the girl will heed, the saviours will fail to stop evil’s regain, and unleash the world to endless pain”   
Thalia let out one last scream before collapsing to the ground and letting the crystal ball roll away. Professor Hart ran over and cradled Thalia in her arms. Her eyes fluttered open and she grabbed her head as if it was still in pain.   
“How did you know those word?” Albus, who had gone a sickly pale colour, demanded. He looked at Thalia as if she wasn’t human. Every student there was scared but Albus looked down right terrified.  
“What words?” Thalia muttered trying to sit up.  
“You can’t know that! There’s no way you could have known them!”   
“Have you heard that before?” Professor Hart asked Albus.  
“I….” Albus looked around at everyone staring at him expectedly and ran out.   
“Um…very well class your dismissed while I take Miss Delvine to the infirmary.”   
Scorpius ran out after Albus. 

 

“Al, what was that?” Scorpius demanded when he’d finally caught up to him in the Gryffindor common room.  
“Do I talk in my sleep?” Albus asked, his hands visible shaking.  
“No just snore, what’s going on?”   
“Maybe it was just …”  
“ALBUS POTTER TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW!” Scorpius demanded leading Albus to his bed to sit down.  
“Those words, I’ve heard them before, I’ve heard them all my life! Every night there in my dreams, I’ve never really thought about them before, I mean there just words. But she recited them word for word. How could she possibly have known them?”  
“I don’t know, I mean it was divination…” Scorpius tried to suggest gently  
“Scorpius this is serious, she knows my dreams!” Albus groaned  
“I am! It’s divination and were wizards, I mean I know everyone thinks that class in looney but there has to be some kind of seriousness to it right?”  
“…..So you think it might actually be a prophecy?”  
“I don’t know, maybe.”  
“…. But it says ‘girl’ that can’t be me.”  
“Okay that part can’t be about you but maybe your one of the ‘saviours’.” Scorpius suggested.  
“I have had just about enough of saviours!” Albus scowled

 

“Well I’m glad you’re feeling better miss Weasley, it’s a shame we couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you”  
“Oh that’s okay madam Lakehurst, I’m just glad I’m feeling better” Rose smiled politely as she left the infirmary and headed up to the Gryffindor common room. As soon as she was out of sight of the healers she smirked.   
Once she made it up her dorm room and made sure she was alone she opened her bag and brought it out.  
The gold mirror.  
“It worked perfectly, how did you even know how to make that potion?”  
“I know a lot of old things, see Rose I told you that class was insane. Wasn’t it better without it?” a woman’s voice came from the mirror  
“Yeah, it was much more pleasant taking that potion and pretending to be sick then sitting around it that stupid class getting laughed at.”  
“Don’t worry, they used to laugh at me too. But it’s okay now I’m your friend. I’m the only one you can trust. And to prove it to you I’ll show myself to you!” The woman’s slithery voice said  
“What do you mean?...” Rose dropped the mirror in shock when her own reflection was replaced by that of a red woman, her image was misty and the edges faded.   
“What’s the matter Rose? I’m your friend aren’t I?” the face in the mirror said.  
“Yes of course I just didn’t know you could do that… how did you?....”   
“Never mind that’s not important, what’s important to me is helping my friend, and getting back at them all for laughing at us.” The hissing voice said.  
“How are we going to do that?” Rose asked examining the mirror more closely  
“Trust me I always have a plan. But first Rose you have to stop pretending, you keep telling me about your ‘friends’ Albus and Thalia but from what I’ve heard they need revenge just as much as everybody else does, they keep pretending to be your friends, but Thalia laughs at you and calls you things behind your back just like the rest of them and Albus is supposed to be your cousin as well as your best friend but he keeps taking Scorpius’ side, he betrays you. I am your friend, not them.”  
Rose looked away from the mirror for a second then looked the woman dead in the eyes.  
“You are my only friend, I’m sorry I didn’t see that right away”  
“Don’t worry, we’ll get them back. I promise.” The woman hissed.  
“How?” Rose asked  
“A long time ago I was unfairly looked away, some nasty people, much like that Scorpius They cursed me to spend all eternity locked away but I managed to free my soul and bring it to my mirror. If you unleash my soul I can help you get your revenge” Rose stared at the mirror confused  
“How do I do that?”  
“I just need one thing… your blood” The woman in the mirror smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

“Albus, Albus!” Scorpius ran straight though the portal almost stumbling in the carpet in his hurry to find his best friend. Albus put down his book and turned to Scorpius quickly, he thought Scorpius had already gone over to breakfast but apparently not, the last time he’d been in this kind of a hurry to find him his cousin had endangered her own life.  
“What? What is it?” Albus said getting off the arm chair he was sitting on by the fireplace.  
“She’s out, Thalia’s out of the hospital! We can talk to her about your dre….”   
“Shh!” Albus cut him off. “Don’t’ say it out loud, people might hear you!” Scorpius sighed  
“I still don’t see why it’s a secret. Especially from Professor Hart, she’s an expert at divination she could help.”  
“My dad had dreams too… and prophecies about him, I don’t want people to find another reason to compare me to him!” Scorpius smiled sadly at him.   
“I get that, but….”  
“I’m not going to! Can we just drop it now? Where is she anyway?”  
“I saw her heading to the library, come on” Albus and Scorpius headed out of the portrait hole.

 

The last thing Thalia Delvine wanted after her totally humiliating mental breakdown in class was to talk about it, but that’s what everyone wanted to do. All her teachers kept asking her if she knew anything about the things they’d told her she said. Her friends kept checking on her every two minutes asking her if she was okay and what she thought had happened. And her classmates kept asking if she thought she’d gone completely mental. Honestly, she wasn’t completely sure if she was sane, she had completely blacked out and no one could tell her why. But the most terrifying part was not knowing when she was going to black out again, for the last few days she’d spent all day worried that she would black out again. So when she finally got out of the infirmary she couldn’t have been more happy to go and study to get her mind of the worry. So she headed out of the infirmary early and went straight to the library to study before breakfast.  
“Thalia!” Albus exclaimed loudly slamming her book shut, making her jump. Scorpius sat by Albus’ side opposite Thalia. When Thalia noticed Albus she blushed hard.  
“We have to talk about what you said in divination” Thalia sighed   
“Not you two! EVERYONE wants to talk about it! I’ll save you to time, no I don’t remember what happened, yes I’m fine, no I don’t know what those words mean and I don’t care if you think I’m crazy!” Thalia grabbed her book and stood up ready to leave  
“No!” Albus grabbed her hand to stop her from leaving. “I mean…. I don’t think you’re crazy” Thalia noticed Albus’ hand still there and her face turned red as a beetroot, Thalia’s face reminded Albus he was still holding her hand and he quickly let go.   
“Please, those words have been in my dreams before, and now you blacked out and recited them, I don’t think you’re crazy, I think something weird is going on.”   
Thalia stared at Albus for a moment, he was the first person to really believe she was sane and what happened wasn’t her fault. It was a nice change.   
“I wish I could help you Albus but I really don’t remember what happened and I really have no idea what those words mean” Thalia frowned. Albus sighed.  
“Thanks anyway, and don’t let them convince you you’re crazy, only you can know that.” Thalia smiled and left the library blushing so hard she was sure Albus must have noticed.  
“So what now Al?” Scorpius asked.  
“It must have just been a coincidence. Anyway it’s Christmas soon, may as well enjoy it instead of worrying about a stupid prophecy that might not even be true!”   
Scorpius sighed. Albus realised bringing up there impending trip home was maybe not the best idea.   
“I don’t think this Christmas will be all that enjoyable.” Scorpius frowned.  
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…”  
“No, no it’s okay, it’s just my dad… anyway you’re right no use worrying in a prophecy that’s properly fake anyway.” Scorpius side-tracked “Hey, why don’t you ask Rose what she thinks it means, she’s an insufferable know-it-all she’ll know the answer, and if she doesn’t well then I get to see the look on her face when she’s clueless, everybody wins!” Scorpius suggested  
“I tried, she’s busy…. Come to think of it she’s always busy and I never know what with, I hardly see her anymore, I’m getting quite worried…”  
“I’m sure she’s fine, probably just studying to make sure she keep the crown of most annoying, judgemental know it all in the school. And you’ll probably see each other over Christmas.” Scorpius offered his suggestion.  
“Yeah I guess, our whole family always spend Christmas with our grandparents, it’s so crazy!”   
“Sounds like fun, even if it does involve Rose. We don’t do much for Christmas, my grandparents just come to visit, believe it or not there worse than my dad!”   
“Come on, I’m sure there not THAT bad….”  
“They were death eaters” Scorpius said, he was staring of into the distance now trying not to focus too much on what he was saying. Albus stared at him for a moment. “I only just found out last year, I kind of knew before but I guess I just couldn’t accept it”   
“Some people change…. And there mistakes don’t define you” Albus put a hand on Scorpius shoulder in hopes of consoling him. It seemed to snap Scorpius out of his train of thought and he smiled kindly.  
“Look let’s just get back to the common room before potions starts” Scorpius said, Albus followed him out.

 

Rose woke up late again, it was taking her so long lately because of the nightmares. Every night she saw the woman in the mirror telling her to unleash her. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about the woman’s offer but there was something so spine tingling and terrifying about having to use her blood to do it. She’d decided to throw the mirror away to make sure it didn’t tempt her, but ever since then the mirror woman had been plaguing her dreams she kept telling herself it was just her imagination taking over and there was no way for her to get out of the mirror, but it rarely calmed her nerves.  
Rose woke up with a jump again and checked the room to make sure it had been a dream. She sighed with relief to find she was alone as everyone else had properly already woken up and gone to breakfast. She got up and changed into her uniform and headed to the bathroom to brush her hair and teeth when she got there she rubbed her eyes and looking in the mirror and screamed when instead of her own reflection she saw the reflection of the woman in the hand mirror she had found. She backed up from the mirror so fast she fell over just as her cousin Roxanne ran in.  
“Rose!? What is it? What’s wrong? What happened?” Roxy panicked as she helped Rose up from the floor. As Roxy helped her up Rose noticed the woman had gone and was replaced with her own reflection. Rose ignored Roxy’s panicking and slowly walked towards the mirror to examine it. She gently placed her hand on the mirror but nothing happened.  
“ROSE! WHAT is going on!?” Roxy demanded. Rose drew her attention away from the mirror and faced her cousin  
“Oh…I thought I saw a spider, I was wrong, sorry about the screaming…wait why aren’t you at breakfast?” Rose questioned regaining her composure.  
“I’ve already had breakfast, Dom and I have to be at the quiditch pitch early to get ready for practice”  
“Why do you two have to go so early?”  
“Dom is the captain and I’m the vice-captain” Roxy rolled her eyes she knew her little cousin and she wasn’t the least bit interested in quiditch  
“Alright, well run along then” Rose demanded. Normally Roxy would have taken her beaters bat and smashed her face in for telling her what to do but she’d grown up with Rose and she’d learnt there was no point trying to avoid Rose’s demands, you WILL end up doing as she says. So instead she just sighed and walked out.  
Part of Rose was insistent that she had just imagined it but she knew deep down that it reminded her of the reflection in the hand mirror far too much to be a coincidence.

 

After their first lesson of the day potions, Albus and Scorpius headed up to the seventh floor for Arithmancy, however because Albus had forgotten to bring his Arithmancy book to his potions class he and Scorpius had to go back up to the Gryffindor common room to get it which made them late. Up until the seventh floor they had been getting by the teachers who would give them detention for being late well. However as they walked out across the last corridor too there classroom which they had been planning to sneak in too, Scorpius spotted peeves. Before Albus had even had a chance to get around the corner Scorpius pushed him back.  
“Shh Peeves” Scorpius whispered.  
“Whose there!” Peeves demanded. Before Peeves had even finished the boys were racing off down to the next corridor. Scorpius and Albus stayed silent with their back flat against the wall waiting until they were sure Peeves had gone.   
“That was so close! Why couldn’t you have just remembered your book!?” Scorpius asked trying to catch his breath. He turned to Albus and noticed he was walking off down the corridor.  
“Albus! I come with you to get your stupid text book, risking detention may I add and you aren’t even listening to me!” Scorpius chased after him.  
“Look!” Albus said picking up the golden object that had caught his eye. “Whose mirror is this?”  
Suddenly a woman’s face appeared in it instead of their reflections.  
“I knew you’d be back” The mirror said in a slithery voice. Suddenly she seemed to notice Albus and Scorpius’ shocked faces and disappeared.  
“…..Did that mirror just…..” Scorpius stuttered  
“….Yeah….” Albus said stunned.

 

Albus had put the mirror in his satchel and both boys had quickly snuck into class surprisingly without being noticed by anyone other than Rose who rolled her eyes and glared furiously at Scorpius as if he was the only one sneaking in. But Scorpius was so freaked out he didn’t even notice her glares. Neither Scorpius or Albus could concentrate all day at lunch time they had decided to take another look at the mirror in the dormitory after classes and before dinner.   
When classes had finally ended Albus and Scorpius practically ran up to the dormitory. Albus took the mirror out of his satchel with caution but to his and Scorpius’ surprise nothing happened. It appeared to be just a regular mirror. Albus and Scorpius tried numerous spells on it to try and get the face to come back but nothing happened.  
“Maybe we imagined it maybe it is just a normal mirror” Albus suggested  
“Both of us? We both heard the same thing we couldn’t have imagined the same thing!” Scorpius said confused.  
“Well maybe it was just a stupid prank my brother and cousins pull them all the time it’s probably from Weasley’s Wizard Wheeze’s or something designed to freak you out. I can ask my uncle George over Christmas about it” Scorpius considered the suggestion but he was still sceptical  
“Okay maybe but I still think it was weird…” just then there was a knock on the boys dormitory which seemed strange considering all the boys in their room never bothered to knock. Rose walked in looking pale and ill but as soon as she saw Scorpius she turned fierce again.  
“Rose? Are you okay?” Rose broke her glare from Scorpius and looked at Albus then noticed the mirror he was holding.  
“Where did you get that mirror!?” Rose demanded. Backing away from it but keeping her eyes completely trained on it as if it was a bomb about to go off at nay second.  
“Oh it’s just a stupid mirror I found on the 7th floor corridor I’m trying to find the owner, it’s nothing to concern yourself with.” Albus twirled the handle in his hands but it just seemed to scare Rose more.  
“It’s mine, can I have it….” Rose started but Albus quickly pulled it in closer.  
“I don’t think it is Rose, you got a hand mirror from aunt Fleur from Christmas last year and it was silver” Albus stared at her confused  
“I mean….I know whose it is so I should probably just take it …” Albus pulled it in even closer  
“It’s okay Rose just tell us who it is and we’ll give it to them” Rose stared at him with a look of terror in her eyes  
“I…Never mind I thought it looked like Thalia’s but looking at it closer I don’t think it does actually” Rose stuttered slightly “You’d better get down to dinner” Scorpius held the door open as Albus stared at Rose for a moment before putting the mirror in his back pocket as he and Rose left. Rose got on ahead leaving Albus and Scorpius to discuss  
“What was that all about?” Scorpius asked confused  
“didn’t you see the way Rose looked at the mirror? She recognized it and if she really did recognized it as Thalia’s then she wouldn’t have claimed it was hers, I don’t know how she knows the mirror or even what this mirror is but I know that whatever this mirror is scared Rose which means it could be dangerous and I don’t want her involved if it’s dangerous.”


	5. Chapter 5

Christmas with the Weasley/Potter’s was far from calm and peaceful. James, Fred and Louis pulled prank after prank on unsuspecting family members who should really know better by now, using whatever Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes products that George had given them against the families protests. Dominique and Roxanne were usually play fighting around the burrows testing out whatever new quidditch equipment they had been given that they could not wait to test out on the real quidditch pitch. Lily would be running around the house playing pretend using whatever magical items she had received as props, usually dragging Hugo (who would have preferred to be reading the muggle book his mother had brought him) around by the hand to play with her. Victoire and Teddy would be sat in whatever quite corner they could find exchanging gifts and more recently kissing each other until someone found them. Albus and Rose would be showing off there presents to each other and unsuccessfully attempting to avoid the pranks his brother would be playing on them. And Molly and Lucy would be in the kitchen helping their gran and mum make Christmas dinner without letting go of each other’s hands.  
However this Christmas was different, instead of helping Rose avoid his brother’s pranks, Albus spent his Christmas hanging around with his uncle George.  
“Are you sure you haven’t….”  
“As I told you the first time Al, I’ve never seen a mirror like that before! Why is this so important to you anyway?” George demanded instead of being downstairs where Christmas dinner was about to be served any minute he’d been dragged into his old bedroom by his nephew and questioned for a good 20 minutes about a mirror he’d never seen before.  
“It’s not I just thought you might have sold it at the store” Albus started at the mirror thoughtfully twirling its handle in his hands trying to imagine the woman he’d seen appear.  
“Why would we sell a mirror?” George looked at his nephew concerned. Albus considered telling him the truth about what he’d seen but despite some of the crazy inventions he’d come up with for the store, Albus knew that if he told him he’d seen another person in a mirror his uncle would think he was truly insane.   
“I…. I don’t know I just thought I recognised it is all” Albus stuttered. George studied him for a moment any other time George would have completely called him out for lying but it was Christmas and George was hungry.   
“Well I’ve never seen it before; you might want to ask the Veela’s there house is full of mirrors!” George suggested already half way out of the room. It’s worth a shot Albus thought as he followed his uncle down for Christmas dinner. 

 

Normally for Christmas dinner Albus would sit between Rose, Lily and Hugo, but this Christmas he was trying to avoid Rose, who he had already caught trying to steal the mirror, and he needed to talk to his cousins. His aunt Fleur had already taken he seat next to her husband and Victoire was already sat holding hands with his practically brother Teddy, Dominique hadn’t inherited much of the Veela gene and he doubted she would recognise any mirror. Which left Louis, he was sat with Fred and James but luckily Fred was in the middle so Albus could sit next to Louis without his brother overhearing the conversation. Albus took a seat and thanked his grandma Molly as she gave him his dinner.  
“Lou I was wondering…..” Albus began but Louis had already started shovelling his dinner down.   
“Yesh?” Louis asked while chewing a big mouthful. Albus wondered how even while eating Louis looked so graceful and elegant. Sometimes he wished he was a Veela but he’s spent enough time with Victoire and Louis to know that there were a lot of downsides too, like the time he’d gone shopping with Louis and a massive crowd of girls started following them so they had to run for miles until they eventually managed to escape them in an alleyway. And the time he’d gone to the Beach with Victoire last year and a group of guys would not leave her alone and kept shouting obscene gestures at her until Teddy eventually came back and helped her get away before threatening them.   
“I was wondering if you’d seen this mirror anywhere, I found it and I think I recognise it” Louis laughed before Albus even had a chance to finish his sentence.  
“Because I’m a Veela you think I’d recognise any mirror in the world?” Louis joked; Albus smiled and handed the mirror to Louis who studied it for a moment , Albus liked Louis he was a lot easier to talk to than most of his cousins, he would have guessed it ran in the family as it felt the same with Victoire but Dominique was the hardest member of his family to talk too! She was temperamental and obsessed with quiditch which often meant she wasn’t interested if it wasn’t about quiditch. But Louis and Victoire were so calm and easy to talk to, even though Louis always got himself mixed up with James and Fred’s pranks.  
“I’ve seen the pattern on the back before but not on a mirror…” Louis continued examining the mirror while Albus’ eyes lit up  
“Where!?” Albus said so loud the whole table stopped to look at him for a moment. Albus turned red as everyone turned back to their previous conversations and food.   
“I don’t know, I think I might have seen it in a book somewhere I can’t really remember it just looks kind of familiar” Louis said thoughtfully. Albus’ face dropped. It was the last lead he had in finding out about the mirror. Albus didn’t have much time to contemplate it though because Rose had spotted the mirror, the fear returned to her eyes much to Albus’ confusion. Albus didn’t have much time so he took the mirror back off Louis and carried on eating glancing over occasionally to check on Rose whose face had turned 10 shades paler. 

 

Albus and Rose pushed through the busy train trying desperately to find a carriage until they finally came across Scorpius’ Albus slid open the door as Rose rolled her eyes and reluctantly followed.  
“Hey” Scorpius said smiling as he noticed Albus, but when he noticed Rose following behind he sighed and looked away. Albus frowned.  
“How was your Christmas?” Albus asked smiling as he took a seat opposite his friend.  
“About as well as could be expected I didn’t get any presents, my dad ignored me, my mum kept looking at me with this horrible disappointed stare and I had to lie to my grandparents about what house I’m in so I don’t get completely disowned. What about you?” Scorpius sighed. Albus frowned as he noticed Rose’s slight smile at Scorpius’ misfortune  
“Same as every year really, we didn’t have enough room to move around the house because it was so packed and you can’t get a word in edgewise” Albus smiled sympathetically, Rose smiled too but her smile was far more sinister.  
“Don’t downplay it Al, we had the most terrific Christmas ever, we had tons of presents, a lovely Christmas dinner and a family that cares about us and doesn’t wish we were dead!” Rose crossed her arms in triumph as Scorpius just stared at her in shock and then quickly focused his attention on the window.  
“ROSE!” Albus stared at her in shock as she stared back at him in confused at his outburst. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Rose finally regained her composure and got up and stormed out. Albus turned quickly to Scorpius  
“I am so sorry about her, that was way out of line and completely inexcusable, of course your family don’t….”  
“No, she’s right they do. But if you ever tell her I said she was right I’ll curse you!” Scorpius joked wiping a tear from his eye.   
“Anyway, what happened with the mirror? Was it your uncles?”   
“No he’d never seen it before, but I did ask my Veela cousin and he said he knew it but he couldn’t remember where from, he thinks maybe a textbook but there are tons of third year text books we’d never be able to find it!” Albus sighed deflated.  
“Well I checked every book in my father’s library that I could find about faces in mirrors and I found nothing. But I now know how to cast a disorientation spell on a mirror to make a person’s face look disfigured”   
“I guess whatever jinx it was has worn off now because the face hasn’t come back.”  
“Well what about Thalia’s words, have you figured out any more about them?”  
“I haven’t stopped thinking about them!” Albus sighed “The dreams are constant, every single night I hear them in some way or another and I can’t figure out what they mean or why Thalia knows them!”  
“Me too, I searched through my father’s…..”  
“Library” Albus finished. Scorpius stared at Albus confused  
“It’s what Rose would do. You know for two people who can’t stand the sight of each other, you are remarkably similar”   
“I know she’s your cousin but that girl is positively vile and I would rather eat a dungbomb then be anything like her!” Scorpius scowled bitterly.  
“She’s really not that bad once you get past the judgemental know-it-all side! But anyway did you find anything in your father’s library?”   
“Nothing! It would help if I really knew what to look for but I searched for anything relevant, I looked up crystal balls, dreams, prophecies, histories of black outs, and none of it was useful!”   
“Well what amazing Christmas’ we had searching for mirrors and dreams.” Albus frowned as he and Scorpius turned to look out of the window.

Rose hadn’t been back to school for more than a few hours and she was already in the library. The library was always able to help distract Rose but this was too strong to ignore, that woman, the woman in the mirror with the golden offer, was now in her cousins’ hands! She couldn’t tell if Albus knew what the mirror really was or not but it was too much to risk, all Christmas she had been trying to get the mirror off Albus but he hung onto it so tightly it terrified Rose. If the lady had been talking to Albus maybe she’s told him about the offer she’d given her. But surely Albus wouldn’t judge her if he knew she’d tried to break the mirror by throwing it at the wall? But if he really knew how much she’d been contemplating it still he might think she was sinister! However Albus would never get rid of the mirror unless he knew and if he didn’t get rid of it she might offer even worse offers to him, and Rose was way over her head with the mirror anyway, maybe Albus could help but her mind at rest if he knew. Yes. It was decided; she had to tell him the truth. Just as she decided Albus stormed in looking around the library until his eyes finally found Rose. Rose got up and ran over to meet him.  
“Al, thank god there’s something have to…”  
“No! It’s my time to talk and your time to listen!” Albus said slamming his school bag down on the table next to them.  
“But Al…”  
“SHUT UP ROSE! You’re so selfish! What you said on the train to Scorpius was rude, cruel, stuck up and downright unforgiveable!”  
“Al…”  
“That’s all you’ve done all year is just make it your life’s mission to make him miserable and degrade him constantly! And why? What EXACTLY did Scorpius Malfoy EVER do to you except having a dad that your dad hates!? He was so right about you you know! You are a daddy’s girl! But you’re also judgemental and rude and I’m not going to tolerate it anymore just because your my family! You need to learn to stop judging people before you get to know them and treat people with the respect they deserve! Are you even going to apologise to him?” Rose looked as if she’d just been slapped in the face; she had gone completely pupils were huge. After a few moments she meekly answered him.  
“No. I can’t apologise to him he…” Rose couldn’t finish her sentence  
“See. He didn’t do anything, you’re just too proud to admit that you were wrong about him.” Albus stared at her for a moment waiting for her to reply but as tears filled up in her eyes it became clear she wasn’t going to so Albus just gave her one last disappointed look before leaving.   
For a while Rose stood there, tears falling down her cheeks as she stared at the empty space where Albus had been. Then her tears turned angry as she grabbed the bag that Albus had forgotten on the Library bench and took out one single gold object.


	6. Chapter 6

Albus headed back through the Gryffindor common room after retrieving his bag and was thankful when he found that the mirror was still in there and intact. As he walked into his dorm room Scorpius turned away from the clothes he was finishing packing and towards Albus.   
“Hey what’s up?” Scorpius asked seeing the sad smile on Albus’ face  
“I talked to Rose about what she said to you on the train and she still won’t apologise! I can’t believe she’s being so stubborn about this!” Albus feel back on his bed sighing.  
“By talk do you mean rational and civilised conversation or do you mean that you shouted at her?” Scorpius asked sitting next down next to him.  
“The second one, but she deserved it after what she said, she went too far that time and she needed to realise what she’s been doing is wrong!”  
“Thank you for sticking up for me and I truly appreciate the support but I’m not worth fighting with your family over! I know Rose hates me and there’s nothing you or I can do to change her mind, I just don’t let what she says get to me. But regardless of how I feel about her and how annoying she can be, you don’t pick your family and she’s yours like it or not, so don’t start a feud just because of me!”   
Albus stared at Scorpius unable to believe that the guy who had been raised by former deatheaters could have a better sense of family than him, the guy who had been raised in a massive family and was raised by the chosen one! Eventually Albus groaned and sat up.  
“I know I love her really, just not the way she’s been acting. Plus keeping her away from this mirror is getting so stressful!” Albus took the golden mirror out of his bag to examine it again.  
“Do you think maybe we did imagine it?” Albus suggested again. Scorpius rolled his eyes impatiently  
“We imagined the same thing Albus that doesn’t just happen with a spell or a potion or something!”   
“Maybe….” But Albus didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because just then Thalia Delvine came in quickly and without knocking.   
“Albus have you seen Rose? I saw her on the train and then she just…..” Thalia noticed the mirror in Albus’ hand and went stiff and her eyes went wide. Albus turned to Scorpius who looked just as confused as he was.  
“Thalia? Thalia what is it? What’s wrong?” Albus said racing over to her but she backed away from him. Suddenly it clicked with Albus and Scorpius what she had been staring at.  
“Do you recognise this?” Scorpius snatched the mirror of Albus and held it forward for Thalia to take but she just back up against the wall.  
“No….it’s just….it’s dark. Everything about it is just dark!” Thalia said dryly.  
“Dark?” Scorpius studied the mirror “I think it looks pretty light coloured…”  
“NO! It feels dark, like an aura or something, I don’t know!” Albus and Scorpius turned to each other and then to Thalia.  
“Like dark magic?” Albus asked tentatively  
“Yes…”  
“But that’s impossible you can’t SENSE dark magic!” Scorpius insisted. Suddenly Thalia jerked forward so quickly Albus and Scorpius jumped. 

 

Before Albus and Scorpius knew it Thalia was running out of the room, they gave each other quick confused glances before running after her. They got so caught up in running after her that they nearly ran up the staircase to the girls dormitory but Scorpius grabbed Albus’ shirt before they could take another step and pulled him back from the stairs  
“We can’t follow her up there, there’s a jinx, and it turns into a slide if any boy tries to go up there.”   
“Why don’t they have that on the boys’ staircase then?” Scorpius shrugged as Thalia ran down the staircase so fasts eh almost ran into them. In her hand was a necklace with a small silver amulet with a red gemstone in the middle.  
“What is….”   
“A person can’t sense dark magic but my necklace can!” Thalia held out the necklace to give the boys a better look  
“How did you get…”  
“It’s a family heirloom my family are all muggles though but Professor Tamsworth the charms professor asked if he could look at it then he did a spell and told me it moves if dark magic is near, my family must have found it when a wizard or witch lost it, now pass me that mirror”   
Scorpius held out the mirror and Thalia took a deep breath and reluctantly took it and paused, which Albus figured was just to make sure she didn’t black out again. She took the necklace from her other hand and held it over the mirror and it started moving in circles.  
“Professor Tamsworth said if it swings in a straight line there’s dark magic in the object and if it stays still there isn’t.”  
“But what about circles?”  
“That mean there was dark magic in there but it’s been transferred somewhere else, somewhere close.”  
“Close? Like how close?” Scorpius’ face paled, he and Albus had been carrying that mirror around since the beginning of December with dark magic in it.  
“Probably within the castle!”  
“Rose…” Albus faintly whispered then turned to Thalia and Scorpius with tears in his eyes  
“She knew the mirror, she was probably trying to warn me about it and now she could get hurt if we don’t find it!” Albus cried  
“We’ll find it…”Thalia began  
“How!?” Albus panicked  
“We’ll use a magic tracker spell on the remains of magic inside the mirror” Scorpius calmly suggested. Thalia stared at him with a ‘are you mad?’ look.  
“We don’t learn that spell until 3rd year…”  
“I can do it. I studied that spell since I was 7!” Thalia and Albus glanced at each other nervously  
“…Well it can’t do that much harm.” Albus meekly suggested. Scorpius smiled.

 

Scorpius took a deep breath and pointed his wand at the mirror that was currently lying face down on Scorpius bed in the empty dorm room except for him, Albus and Thalia. Albus and Thalia had decided to watch the spell from the other side of the dorm room just incase. Scorpius closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, waved his wand gently and recited the spell. Albus and Thalia quickly covered their heads and turned away but to their surprise nothing happened  
“I’m sorry I guess research just wasn’t enough for this spell” Thalia frowned  
“No there’s a trail but only I can see it, it won’t last long so follow me!” Scorpius said already running towards the door. The followed Scorpius all the way up to the 7th floor corridor when he finally stopped and looked around confussed.  
“This is where we found the mirror! Do you think the dark magic left when we took it?” Albus inquired.  
“The trail’s not pointing there it’s pointing in that wall.”  
“In a wall? Is that even possible?” Thalia asked.  
“Urgh! I wish we could just find this stupid mirror spirit!” Albus cried sinking to the floor, but as he did a door began to appear in front of them. They all stood staring at it for a moment before Scorpius finally took a step forward. Albus grabbed Scorpius’ wrist  
“You can’t just walk in there you don’t know what it is!” Albus exclaimed, Thalia nodded in agreement  
“What if Rose is in there with it do you really want your cousin to die!?” Scorpius said freeing his wrist and carrying on walking towards the door. Albus glanced at Thalia who looked conflicted and finally joined Scorpius. Scorpius tentatively pushed open the door and saw Rose standing in the centre of a dark sinister living room, the only light in the room was the light from the fireplace the illuminated the blood dripping from her hand and the trail of blood dripping from the long floor length mirror in the centre of the room. 

 

Albus cried out when he saw Rose’s blood stained hands   
“ROSE!” Rose suddenly turned to them as if just noticing their presence she smiled at them wickedly, it was Albus who first noticed her eyes glowing red instead of their usual blue. Albus’ mouth hung open.  
“Rose has gone away for a little while, actually soon enough she will be gone forever, I’m so sorry you missed him” ‘Rose’ said in a voice that gave Scorpius, Albus and Thalia chills. The person in Rose’s body pointed Rose’s wand steadily at them.  
“You’re going to kill her so you can keep her body!” Scorpius breathed shakily. Thalia and grabbed onto Albus’ arm and was holding it so tight it was staring to bruise, but Albus was so shaken he didn’t notice. ‘Rose’ scowled and glared at Scorpius, her scowl almost reminded him of the real Rose, he guessed he was just more used to her scowling than smiling.   
“No you stupid boy! You really think I’d live in the body of a STUPID, SELFISH little girl!? I am simply using this body until I can restore mine to its former glory! And then I’ll kill her for being such an annoying whiney little brat and knowing far too much!” the woman shouted as she glided closer to the trio who backed up against the wall.   
“Who are you? What do you want with Rose she didn’t do anything to you! She wouldn’t….”   
This made the fake Rose smirk again.  
“Oh she did plenty, she reawakened my spirit, allowing me to be free, and she is the reason for my triumphant return!”  
“The mirror! You’re the woman trapped in the mirror” Scorpius exclaimed as the fake Rose focused her wand on him and rolled her eyes. “But who are you? Why do you need to return?”  
“I need to return because my battle is far from over, I have been imprisoned in that awful mirror for millions of years and now I am free and can complete my life’s destiny, to destroy ALL magic!” the fake Rose gestured wildly with her free arm, a wildness that matched the wild look in her glowing red eyes. “Starting with your precious little friend and you” fake Rose laughed a sinister laugh.  
“NO!” Albus screamed and lurched forward towards fake Rose who cast a glowing green spell form Rose’s wand in retaliation.  
They all ducked, Thalia crouching down, Albus diving to the side and Scorpius jumping down to lie on the floor. Before fake Rose could cast another spell Albus shot a spell back in retaliation, Thalia crawled behind the chair, Thalia screamed and crawled behind the chair and Scorpius got half way to the sofa when he realised Albus wasn’t following him and jumped back to grab him back. Albus quickly shrugged him off and shot another spell with fake Rose blocked expertly and hit another killing curse as Albus who narrowly avoided it. Scorpius ducked behind the sofa calling out to Albus was fighting angry tears and as the manic Rose laughed at his attempts. Scorpius crawled behind fake Rose, who was so busy fighting Albus he barely noticed her and made his way to Thalia behind the chair. He embraced her quickly as a flash of light scraped past Thalia’s shoulder cutting her arm wide open.   
Albus fired back in retaliation. Scorpius quickly grabbed Thalia’s necklace and threw it over her head and into his palm. A shocked Thalia just grabbed hold of her arm and kept her back firmly to the chair and Scorpius ran around the back of the chair just as another flash of light hit Albus’ leg and sent him to his knees the fake Rose grinned and stood towering over a crying Albus  
“Avada…” just then Scorpius who had managed to get close to fake Rose without her noticing, threw the necklace over her neck causing her to scream in pain as a terrifying red mist oozed from her body, she crumpled to the floor as the mist surrounded her. The red mist began to take the shape of the woman in the mirror screaming in pain and suddenly the mist dispersed.  
Barely a second past before Albus had crawled over to Rose’s body and began shaking it furiously  
“ROSE!?” Albus cried as Thalia appeared from behind the chair and Scorpius knee’s buckled under him from exhaustion.   
Rose spluttered and her eyes fluttered open and she gasped fiercely for air. Albus was so relieved his tears got bigger and fatter.  
“Albus! I’m so sorry I didn’t think…. I thought….she told me…. I’m so sorry” Rose burst into thick heavy tears and Albus grabbed her in his arms and hugged her tight as they cried into each other’s shoulders.

 

When the infirmary asked then what had happened to their bruised and beaten bodies, all four of them just stood there confused with blank expressions, before Rose finally stepped forward.  
“It’s my fault madam Lakehurst I was trying to perform a spell I’d heard about and it went wrong, I’m sorry” Rose looked up at madam Lakehurst guiltily while Albus, Thalia and Scorpius looked at Rose in shock.   
“Very well I’ll inform your head of house immediately and punish will be taken when you’re recovered, now all 4 of you take a seat over on the beds”   
As Madam Lakehurst gave them a final disapproving glare she walked out and the 4 of them headed for the bed.  
“Why would you do that? Why would you cover for me?” Scorpius inquired as he tentatively sat down next to Rose making sure not to lean on the knee that had been injured when he’d dived behind the sofa. Rose looked at him for the first time without a scowl but an honest and sincere look.  
“Because you saved my life twice even after I said such horrible things and treated you so terribly, you still saved me” Rose blinked back tears. Albus and Thalia look briefly at each other before looking away and giving Rose and Scorpius a moment of privacy.   
“Just because you’ve been rude doesn’t mean you deserve to die, nobody deserves to die, but is this your way of apologising to me?”   
“No, you deserve better than that! … I’m sorry! I’m sorry I judged before I knew you, I’m sorry I treated you so rudely, I’m sorry I said your parents wished you were dead and I’m sorry that I never thanked you for saving my life” Rose’s tears were falling heavier now.  
“You’re welcome, and I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you as well” Scorpius smiled and held out his hand.  
“Truce?” Rose looked and it for a moment then smiled and shook his hand  
“Truce”  
“Uh… sorry to interrupt this lovely moment but who was that woman who took over your body and tried to kill us!?” Albus exclaimed, Rose’s face turned serious  
“I don’t know….she wouldn’t tell me who she was, she just kept telling me she could make me happy if I set her free and I felt compelled by her…. I don’t know” Rose sighed shaking her head  
“Well look, there’s no need to worry now, she’s dead I killed her!” Scorpius reassured.  
“How did you do that?” Thalia inquired  
“Your necklace, I know about the spell it has on it, it’s extremely powerful, it doesn’t just sense dark magic it repels it, when I placed it on her it repelled her out of Rose’s body” Scorpius confirmed  
“No.” Rose said shaking her head “I don’t think she’s dead, she’s too powerful to be destroyed by a charmed necklace I think the most we did was set her back” Rose stared into the distance. Albus put his hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her train of thought.  
“Have some faith! You’re probably just scared but there’s not need to be, I’m telling you now that woman will not be back!” Albus patted Rode on the back, she smiled at the gesture.  
“Maybe now we can have a quite term!” Thalia sighed. Albus laughed  
“I’m Harry Potter’s son, something tells me our time at Hogwarts will never be quite!”


	7. Part 2 Chapter 1

Rose screamed as Albus chased her through the halls off Hogwarts that had been swallowed whole by flames. As Rose ran as fast as she could down the great hall a large piece of debris fell from the ceiling narrowly missing her but blocking her escape route. Rose turned around and faced her cousin whose eyes were glowing red, as Albus moved toward her Rose back up as far as she could to the huge pile of wood from the ceiling.   
“Y…Y….You can’t be here….h…he…killed you.” Rose stuttered trying desperately to move the debris but it didn’t move an inch. Rose gulped as Albus cackled.  
“You always were a naive little girl! You of all people have seen what I can do! Do you really think I could be beaten by a NECKLACE!?” Albus spat in the hissing voice Rose was all too familiar with.   
“Don’t you get it you stupid girl!? I am UNBEATABLE!” The mist woman screamed and fired a green spell directly at Rose who just managed to duck in time to allow the spell to hit the annoying obstacle behind her and shatter it to pieces allowing Rose to run again.   
As Rose ran for the stairs Albus grabbed her tightly by the wrist at first Rose struggled but as soon as he started speaking all she could so was stare at him. He spoke in the same hissing voice as the mist woman but Rose could tell that it wasn’t her the vacant expression in her eyes assured her of that.   
“A search will begin for the tomb of mist, but when three go searching the entrance dismissed, the girl with the ancient powers holds the key, when the tomb is opened the answers and body shall be free.”   
As soon as she’d finished talking she bought a knife out from behind her back and forced her to the ground. As the knife began closing down on her Rose heard Scorpius’ voice calling her name. It confused the mist woman too who loosened her grip on Rose’s wrist then slowly faded away as did the rest of the castle.

 

Rose jumped as she woke her breathing was fast and she was uncontrollably shaking, she blinked and noticed that instead of a burning Hogwarts she was actually on the Hogwarts express and Albus, Scorpius and Thalia were all looking at her concerned. Suddenly her memory of boarding the Hogwarts express and saying goodbye to her parents and little brother came back to her, even though she knew it was a dream it had felt so really that she was still shaking. Scorpius who was sat next to her and closest to the window placed his hand on her shoulder gently.  
“Rose it’s okay it was just a nightmare, nothing’s going to hurt you.” Rose looked at him, swallowed and nodded but she was still shaking.   
“It was her again wasn’t it! Look Rose she’s gone, Scorpius killed her, you have to move past this it’s been 8 months and she hasn’t done anything because she’s dead!” Albus insisted putting his hand on her knee. Suddenly the details of the dream came back to her and she reached into her satchel and bought out a pad of paper and a pen.  
“You bought a pen and paper onto the train? I just bought snacks and exploding snap!” Thalia asked confused. When she was done she stared at the paper to make sure it was right then handed it to Albus.  
“Why did she say this then!? Stop pretending that this is nothing Al! She’s just spouted a prophecy at us! Clearly she’s still alive” Albus stared at the piece of paper and Rose could see his expression change to pure disbelief and panic for just a second before he shoved it back in her hand.  
“Rose it was a dream! And taking words I say in my sleep and pretending there some kind of prophecy isn’t funny!” Scorpius did a double take at Albus before grabbed the notepad from Rose.  
“You and Rose are hearing the same words in your dreams and you think it’s a coincidence!? You’re a Potter and she’s a Weasley! Since when have your family had coincidences!? Do you even remember who your parents are!?” Scorpius exclaimed as he read Rose’s prophecy  
“Never allowed to forget actually! And she didn’t have that dream she must have overheard me sleep talking when we were at the burrows this summer.”   
“I didn’t I swear! I’ve never heard those words before! she just started saying them but it wasn’t her saying them it was like she was being possessed.” Rose frantically tried to explain  
“So your telling me that the woman in the mist possessed ….whoever it was this time…”  
“It was you” Rose quickly interrupted  
“Okay so this mist woman possessed me then get possessed herself by some unknown spirit trying to give you a prophecy!?” Albus said sceptically   
“How can you not at least here her out after what happened to you last year!?” Scorpius stared in disbelief. “In case you forgot your dreams magically predicted a manic mist spirit trying to escape!”  
“He’s right, even I managed to hear the prophecy when you opened up your mind to me….” Thalia said gently, trying to help get Scorpius and Rose’s points across without getting Albus mad like he had done every time they’d tried to talk about it before. Albus sighed  
“LISTEN to yourselves! You sound CRAZY! No one even takes divination seriously anyway! And besides the prophecy didn’t even completely come true anyway!”  
“ ‘Pride will consume the girl with greed’ …. No offense Rose but I’m pretty sure your pride consumed you last year! ‘To the reflection the girl will head’ …. Again no offense Rose but you were under her spell…”  
“OKAY! So some parts were true but we DID stop evil’s regain and last time I checked no one was in endless pain! Can we just stop talking about it! We’ll be here soon anyway” Albus sighed as the carriage went silent.   
Suddenly the sliding door getting pushed open broke the silence. Jasper Zabini and Sienna Vane appeared at the door with a few other first years following.   
“And over here we have the goody goody Gryffindor’s and the famous Harry Potter’s son, but don’t be fooled his offspring’s biggest accomplishment is managing to do the levitation spell on the 43rd time!” Jasper Zabini spitefully told the first years  
“And over there we have another Weasley girl, you’ve proberbly heard of them they reproduce like rabbits and all look the same! Across from here we have the freak show, careful kids don’t get to close she might start screamed and shouting and having a fit! And next to the Weasley girl we have the wannabe Gryffindor who was supposed to be a Slytherin but couldn’t even do that right because he’s such a disappointment!” Sienna Vane interjected. The first years behind her started to giggle as Rose and Albus glared at them while Thalia looked away and Scorpius clenched his fist. Albus get up and walked over to the door and stared Jasper right in the face.  
“Get lost Jasper!” Albus said through clenched fists. Jasper glared at him while Sienna and the first years chuckled.   
“Come on, we don’t want to give the first years weirdo germs before they even start!” Jasper and the rest of the group moved onto the next carriage while Albus shut the door.   
“God I hate them!” Rose scowled.  
“Loathe isn’t a strong enough word for them!” Scorpius growled  
“Yeah he’s just such an idiot!” Albus sighed  
“You mean there idiots? Sienna’s just as horrible!” Thalia said  
“Yeah of course I meant them both!” Albus said quickly.   
“I’d better go get changed I’ve got dribble all down my shoulder!” Scorpius sighed as he grabbed his uniform ready to go get changed.  
“Dribble?.... Oh my gosh I fell asleep on you didn’t i! I’m so sorry about that i….” Rose had turned as red as her hair.  
“It’s okay! I was going to move you but you were so deep in sleep I thought I’d startle you. But I never do get tired of those apologies” Scorpius joked as he winked at Rose and left the room.

 

After the feast Albus and Scorpius watched James and Fred try to convince the new Gryffindor’s that if they didn’t do at least one brave act by the end of the year they would be disowned and the sorting hat would have to resort them. Rose and Thalia joined the festivities for a while before Rose decided to go to bed early and Thalia decided to join a game of exploding snap some of the older Gryffindor girls had started to make the younger ones feel more comfortable.  
That night Rose dreamt she was being chased by Thalia who was possessed by the mist woman around the burrows as she killed all the rest of her family. Just before Rose woke up Thalia said the exact same prophecy she’d said in Rose’s last dream. Rose woke up screaming and got 6 different pillows shoved at her from her roommates intended to indicate that she should stop screaming. Except Thalia who ran to Rose’s side and sat next to her on the bed holding her shoulders as she was shaking again.   
“Mist again?....i don’t know why I’m even asking of course it was!” Thalia sighed “Look you heard Albus, she’s dead I saw it happen!”  
“I can’t shake it though Thal… the feeling that she’s not” Rose whispered. Thalia stared at her in contemplation for a moment.  
“Maybe I should get Albus and Scorpius and we can go for a walk before breakfast, you know to get your mind of it?” Thalia suggested. Rose looked over at her alarm clock it was 5.45, light enough to go for a walk yet late enough that she wouldn’t have to think about going back to sleep. She nodded and grabbed her dressing gown.

 

It didn’t feel like sneaking out of the castle because the caretaker was asleep and it was light outside so no one so they doubted anyone would be bothered.  
“Rose you have to stop this!” Albus sighed.  
“Don’t you think I would if I could!? You think I LIKE dreaming that she’s killing me and everyone I care about? I don’t! But I can’t stop thinking it means something”   
“Look Rose no one is saying you do like it, I mean what happened to you last year was terrifying! Nightmares and paranoia are completely natural given what you went through…”  
“Not for 9 months though!” Albus mumbled as Scorpius glared at him.  
“Were just trying to help you Rose, we know she’s dead and gone and were concerned you might be hanging onto your fears and the feeling you can’t shake is fear not …her” Thalia tried to reassure her but Rose turned away to wipe the tears from her eyes.  
“You think I’m just some stupid girl who let out this murdering spirit and is now just being annoying because she’s scared” Rose said certainly  
“NO! No one is saying that! Nobody thinks you’re stupid! She had you under her spell Rose anyone would have fallen for it!” Scorpius exclaimed  
“You wouldn’t have, none of you would have. That’s why your ‘The saviours’ and I’m just….the girl who fell to her pride and needed to be saved” Rose had tears in her eyes.  
“That was just these stupid words! They didn’t mean anything!” Albus sighed softly looking over at his cousin. Rose turned away from Scorpius who was wiping the tears from her eyes and towards Albus.  
“I may be making something up out of fear but you’re so far in denial that she could be back that your ignoring the signs! We both heard the prophecy Al! That means something I’m sure of it!”  
“It does not! Scorpius back me up on this!” Scorpius glanced at Albus apologetically  
“Sorry Al but maybe she’s right about it meaning something… She’s defiantly right about you being in denial though!” Albus rolled his eyes at him.  
“I liked It better when you hated each other! You’ll back me up won’t you Thalia?” Albus asked. When there was no reply everyone turned around quickly to find that Thalia had not been following them as they’d thought.   
“Thalia!?” Rose called out. Suddenly Scorpius took around and realised that without them realising they’d somehow wondered into the dark forest.  
“Um…guys….i think were in the forest…. You know the forbidden dangerous one!” Scorpius gulped.  
“Come on we have to go find Thalia!” Albus said already running, the only problem with this plan was that no one could remember which way they had gone! After running in what they thought was the right direction for a few minutes Albus pulled back a tree branch and came across some completely startling, Scorpius and Rose followed and stared speechlessly. They had come across a clearing with three tall boulders in a triangle and a stone platform in the middle  
“What is this place?” Albus asked stunned.


	8. Part 2 Chapter 2

The trio stood frozen for a moment staring at the unknown section of the forest. They had been told that there were many strange and dangerous things in the forbidden forest but they’d assumed that meant creatures not clearings. Rose took a step forward but Scorpius grabbed her arm quick as a flash and griped her wrist tight. She looked down at it then up at him.  
“Rose, don’t! We don’t know what this is, it could be dangerous!” Scorpius warned. Rose stared at him.  
“It’s 3 boulders… what harm could they do!?” Rose asked confused.   
“I’m sure you said the same thing about a simple mirror that tried to kill us! Besides they have marks on see? They might be enchanted!” Scorpius pointed over to the farthest rock. Rose’s eyes widened. Rose tried to break free of Scorpius and take another step but Albus took a step forward too.  
“No Rose! Scorpius is right it’s too dangerous! Besides we’ve lost Thalia in a dangerous forest! Shouldn’t we be focused on finding her right now!?” Albus panicked. Rose looked from the clearing to the forest and back again, she sighed and pulled her wrist away from Scorpius.  
“Come on then” She sighed. 

 

It was 7 o clock when they finally gave up searching the forest for Thalia and decided to turn back and tell the headmaster instead. Just as they came out of the forest Rose stopped.  
“It’s all my fault! We never would have lost it her if I hadn’t have been having these stupid nightmares!” Rose had tears forming in her eyes again.  
“Don’t say that! Thalia’s going to be okay and it is NOT your fault!” Scorpius insisted. Rose gave him a half smile.  
“It’s a little bit her fault….” Albus thought out loud. Rose looked away while Scorpius glared at Albus.  
“Dude! She’s your family! Besides it’s no one’s fault and can we all stop thinking the worst! Thalia’s going to be……right there?” Scorpius noticed Thalia running towards them at full speed from behind Albus’ shoulder. Rose and Albus turned to see her and beamed. As Thalia reached them Albus tackled her into a huge hug before she could do anything. Her eyes widened and her face turned red so quickly that she mentally cursed herself as she prayed the red might disappear before Albus let her go. After a few seconds Thalia expected Albus to let go but he didn’t. It was Rose’s cough that finally split them apart. Luckily Thalia didn’t have to worry about her face as Albus was also blushing hard at Rose giggling slightly behind them.  
“I…I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to….i….I’m just…really glad you okay” Albus stammered. Thalia smiled then realised what he’d said and she got snapped back from her dream world.  
“I’M okay!? You guys are the one that wondered into the forest! I thought we were heading to the owlery… I thought you were following me!”   
“I thought we were too but we got into the forest, then we found this clearing with these boulders and they had marks on them and…” Rose frantically tried to explain.  
“We’ve found her it’s okay now. We can forget about the clearing” Albus said firmly.  
“But…” Rose stared open mouthed.  
“I said forget about it Rose!” Albus warned. Rose sighed and started walking away.  
“Where are you going!?” Scorpius asked exasperated.  
“To breakfast…. Don’t worry I’ll summon the killed demon ladies after tea if it’ll please you!” Rose snapped not even looking back. Albus sighed as they started to follow her. 

 

Scorpius was beginning to understand what he and Rose had put Albus through by arguing last year! Rose’s dreams had started back in January after they had destroyed the mist woman and since then Albus had been in such firm denial that she was anything other than dead. It usually caused a lot of arguments as Rose firmly believed she wasn’t dead. Therefore Scorpius had spent a lot of time this year staying in the middle of arguments, as Albus had done last year. Albus was Scorpius’ best friend and the first person to know his last name and treat him with no presumptions anyway, not many people were that kind to him! But even thought they’d spent half their first year ready to curse each other at any given point he couldn’t deny that he connected with Rose, he also couldn’t deny that she did have a point about the dreams, they were far to frequent and detailed to be coincidences!   
As the three of them and Thalia were heading to 3rd period Herbology Albus and Rose were in a heated argument about the dreams. Scorpius had the misfortune of walking inbetween them.  
“Look guys can we just….put the argument on hold or something!?” Scorpius sighed exasperated. Albus and Rose looked each other then looked away.  
“Thank you” Scorpius smiled and Thalia giggled.  
“God I hate Herbology” Albus sighed “Having to see Amile once a year was bad enough now I have to work with her too! Neville must have put us together on purpose because he knows were related! We’re not even proper cousins, she’s my dad’s cousin’s daughter! And she’s so rude and mean!” Albus scowled.  
“Professor Longbottom not ‘Neville’ and come on! It’s only Herbology, the rest of the time you hardly ever see her! Just work nicely with her for a little while then you can leave” Rose rolled her eyes.  
“Didn’t I used to have to tell you the same thing about your partner!?” Albus asked sarcastically.  
“Yeah but now that the two smartest people in our year are working together instead of competing, we get the highest marks in the year! And it’s much more fun now” Rose commented.  
“She’s right! Give Amile a chance and you might find out she’s a lot more fun than her stick in the mud appearance makes her look!” Scorpius joked. Rose playfully shoved him.  
“I did give Amile a chance! She’s just mean!”   
“My partner’s not mean, he’s just lazy! Jack Boot never does ANYTHING!” Thalia sighed as they entered the classroom. Just before they were about to go to their allotted tables Albus stopped Scorpius.  
“Wait dude were still on for quiditch try outs this afternoon right?” Albus asked excitedly  
“You’re trying out for quiditch?” Rose asked confused   
“Why didn’t you guys tell us before?” Thalia asked.  
“I thought we weren’t going to tell them at all!” Scorpius directed at Albus, and then turned to the girls “We didn’t want to tell you Couse the chances of us even getting on the team are so small! We didn’t want you guys to come and watch us fail. Second years never make the team!”   
“If I recall the quiditch plaques in the hallways correctly, wasn’t your dad in the team on his second year? And your dad was in it on his first year!” Rose asked sarcastically.  
“Well yeah….but were not our fathers….look just please don’t come!” Albus asked. The girls looked each other and snorted.  
“Like Merlin we’re not coming! And you can’t stop us” Thalia grinned.  
“Fine but don’t get your hopes up!” Albus sighed as he took his place next to Amile. When Rose and Scorpius were at their table (which happened to be the furthest one away from Albus and Amile’s and Thalia and Jack’s table) Rose turned to Scorpius and her expression when from joking to worried.  
“You need to meet me on the 7th floor corridor after the quiditch try outs and before dinner!” Rose urgently pushed.  
“Wait why? Why can’t we just talk now? And why not Albus and Thalia?” Scorpius’ cheeks turned slightly red.  
“Because you’re the only one who’ll listen! Please just do this….for me?” Rose asked tentatively but still panicked. Scorpius stared at her for a moment in disbelief then saw the panic and fear in her eyes and realised she was asking him for help! Even thought he’d only known Rose Weasley for a year he knew her well enough to know she rarely needed or asked for help and whatever she needed it for must be pretty urgent. Scorpius sighed.  
“Alright I’ll meet you there”

 

Albus and Scorpius nervously walked onto the pitch in there new quiditch robes. They had barely got half way before Albus got a huge pat on the back that made him leap forward.  
“Hey Ally! I didn’t know you were interested in the quiditch team!?”   
“It’s Albus. Scorpius these are my cousins, Dominique and Roxanne. There the captains of the Gryffindor team. Me and Scorpius thought we’d try out.” Albus nervously smiled art his cousins whose favourite past time was quiditch and teasing, and Albus had now given them the chance to do both at the same time! Scorpius nervously smiled at the two most terrifying girls he’d ever seen in his life! Dominique’s frizzy orange hair was tied up in a bun on top of her head which revealed a faint scar on her cheek. She also wore a chilling smirk and carried a beaters bat that looked old and run down but still looked like one hit would crack his head wide open!   
Roxanne on the other hand was smaller and had a slimmer frame but the wicked glare in her eyes and matching beaters bat at her side promised she was stronger than she looked. Her curly hair was tied up in a ponytail ready for action. The intimidation that radiated from these girls was enough for Scorpius to start wondering what the Weasley girls drank! He had met 3 Weasley girls and Scorpius had no doubts that each one could probably hex him into oblivion if he got on their bad side.  
“Don’t think that just because all the Weasley-Potter’s have been on the quiditch team it means I’ll automatically let you on Ally!” Dominique warned.  
“But your sister wasn’t…”  
“Yeah but…”  
“Or your brother…”  
“But…”  
“Or Molly….”  
“All the GRYFFINDOR Weasley’s!” Dominique shouted pushing Albus to get her point across. Albus nodded then he and Scorpius made their way over to the other people trying out.  
“Dude I have to ask why are all the girls in your family so terrifying!?” Scorpius asked. Albus burst out laughing.  
“Remind me to introduce to Victoire, Molly, Lucy and my sister one day! There terrifying too, but only when you get them mad! Most of the time there less terrifying than Dom and Roxy.” Suddenly James and Fred popped up behind them.  
“Alright baby brother! I see your joining in the family business!” James Potter grinned and Fred chuckled, then they noticed Scorpius next to him. “Oh so THIS is the Malfoy you’ve been hanging out with!”   
“Scorpius….my brother and Roxy’s Brother Fred. Guys lay off him!” Albus scowled.  
“Relax little Potter!” Fred put a hand on Albus’ chest.  
“Look Malfoy your FRIENDS with my brother right? You’re not just using him, or pranking him, or pretending for some stupid Slytherin scheme right? You’re actually his friend? And you wouldn’t turn on him?” James asked suddenly serious.  
“Of course I wouldn’t! He’s my best friend!” Scorpius confidently stated. Albus stared at James in amazement, then James’ serious expression cracked and a smile came through.  
“Then we’re cool Malfoy! See you in the air!” James joked as he and Fred walked off to Dom and Roxy.  
“I think that might have been the nicest thing he’s ever done for me! He’s never that protective!” Albus stared in amazement but he was interrupted by the start of Dominique’s opening speech.

 

As they watched from the stands Rose and Thalia cheered there friends on and jumped out of their seats when Albus scored a goal and Scorpius pushed his competitor out of his way. Although Rose had never really gotten the appeal of quiditch and she rarely went to her cousins’ quiditch games, she felt she had to go to the try outs. Since the whole mirror incident Rose had been trying so hard to be a better person, last year she had completely judged Scorpius based on his surname and isolated herself from her cousin and best friend because her pride had completely gotten control of her! And with all the arguing her and Albus had been doing lately she felt supporting him at his try outs was the least she could do.   
Just as Albus scored another goal Sienna Vane took a seat next to Rose. Rose looked over at her with annoyance.  
“What are you doing here? This is the GRYFFINDOR try outs!” Rose exclaimed. Sienna rolled her eyes. She was incredibly beautiful with her blonde curls and bottle green eyes and tall, skinny figure but there was an evilness about her beautiful. She looked like the type of person whose smile both set you on edge and completely enticed you at the same time, like her beauty could kill you. Thalia hated it more than most people did, not because she couldn’t see Sienna’s appeal but because she could. She was jealous of Sienna’s looks, she wished her dull black hair fell in beautiful ringlets, she wished her eyes got darker in the light, and she wished she got the attention Sienna got.  
“Don’t freak out freckles! I’m just here to watch, which I’m perfectly allowed to do!” Sienna smiled.  
“Why would you want to watch the try-outs? Won’t your boyfriend Jasper curse you for just being this close to this many Gryffindor’s!?” Thalia asked sarcastically.   
“Jasper’s not my boyfriend!” Sienna hastily added “Besides he doesn’t control me, I have my reasons for being here!” Sienna rolled her eyes again. Rose turned back to the match and tried to ignore Sienna but Thalia watched her for a moment and followed her eye line, her heart sank when she realised what Sienna was watching.  
It was another half an hour before the try-outs finally ended. As Dominique stated her closing speech about how not everyone could be on the team Rose grabbed her bag and hastily left Thalia with Sienna as she rushed up to the seventh floor to meet Scorpius.


	9. Part 2 Chapter 3

Scorpius was so curious about Rose’s meeting that he hadn’t even bothered getting changed. Rose was waiting impatiently for him on the other side of the door with her red satchel in hand as he reached the 7th floor. The second he entered she grabbed his arm and sprinted down the corridor with him in tow.   
“Rose where are we going!?” Scorpius panted. Rose stopped but kept a hold on his wrist. She was smiling proudly as she faced a wall.  
“We’re here!” Scorpius looked around and then it hit him where he was. This was the corridor that Thalia’s necklace had led them too. This was where the mist woman had tried to kill them.  
“ROSE! Why are we HERE?” Scorpius hissed at her but her smile didn’t phase.  
“Shh! I need to concentrate!” Rose closed her eyes and within a few moments a door appeared again.  
“You can’t be serious! You want to go back to the place you nearly died!?” Scorpius gave her a disbelieving look as she rolled her eyes.  
“It’s the room of requirement dummy! It changes to suit the person’s needs, I asked to be alone and it gives me a room to be alone in ….. The mist woman asks for a room to hide in and it gave her a hiding spot” Rose explained as she pulled Scorpius through the door.

 

The room was simple and plain, a wooden floor with white walls, two chairs in the middle and a glass coffee table. It looked much less sinister than the last time Scorpius had been there. Rose instantly took one seat and looked at the other one implying Scorpius should take it, he got the hint and rushed to his seat.  
“So ….why did you bring me here again?” Scorpius asked tentatively. Rose turned serious and frightened again.  
“It’s about….her.” Rose paused. Scorpius half smiled  
“I kind of figured but why couldn’t you talk to Albus and Thalia about this?”   
“Because the second I even mention her name Al shuts off! It’s like he wants her to be dead so badly that he rejects anything that could threaten that! And Thalia tries to be nice but you can tell she doesn’t believe either! You’re the only one who’ll hear me out! … You will hear me out right?” Scorpius paused for a moment and stared at her. He had to admit the theory that she had survived sounded unbelievable even to him, but he came from a family that believed in only speaking when spoken to, so he knew all about not being heard out.   
“Of course I will!” He reassured her. “Now what’s your theory?” Rose brought out a huge text book and opened it up it up about half way in.  
“Well… That clearing we were in this morning with the boulders… I think it might be a tomb. I know it sounds truly crazy but last night before bed I was reading through this book about ancient wizarding tombs…” Rose was skipping pages trying to find the chapter she needed.   
“As a bit of light reading?” Scorpius interrupted sarcastically.  
“…Well not exactly! The prophecy in my dream mentioned a tomb so I figured it couldn’t hurt to look some up!” Rose looked at Scorpius guiltily as Scorpius rolled his eyes. She finally found the page she needed and pointed the book towards Scorpius.  
“Anyways, back in the Victorian era witches and wizards used to put their loved ones into concealed tombs so the muggles who were witch hunting couldn’t find their bodies and burn them. It was very popular during the witch hunting days, the descendants of the tombs occupant would use a concealment charm, which allowed rocks and boulders to be key that only there family blood could unlock with by holding touching the rocks while another magical person reads an incantation that will be visible on the rocks only to magical people.” Rose tried to explain. Scorpius stared at her wide eyed.  
“So people would make a tomb for their dead relatives then open it by touching rocks and have someone else read the incantation on the rocks?” Scorpius tried to summarise  
“Magic wasn’t as advanced in those days! Nowadays concealment charms are much easier!”   
“Anyway you think that clearing might be the mist woman’s tomb?” Scorpius asked sceptically.  
“I know I sound mad and maybe I am but think about it! A prophecy is recited in my dream saying a tomb is destined to be opened this year and then we come across a clearing with 3 rocks that have markings on them!” Rose exclaimed passionately gesturing to the pictures of boulders in the book.   
“Okay you have a point…”  
“Exactly! But I can’t be sure because we weren’t close enough to get a good look at the markings on the rocks! Which is why…and please don’t freak out …but I want to sneak out and get a better look!” Scorpius’ jaw hung open as she said it.  
“No! Rose you can’t….”  
“I know there’s a high chance I’m just really shaken up from last year and maybe I’ve made this whole thing up in my head, but I truly belief she’s alive and if we could find her tomb we might find out more about her! I need to take this chance!” Scorpius shook his head unable to believe what he was hearing. Then realised what Rose really wanted to do, prove she was sane. All these months Albus had been dismissing her beliefs as crazy and now she had a chance to prove she wasn’t, she needed this.  
“I can’t believe I’m saying this but….fine. I believe you Rose and if you think going back to the clearing might help prove your point…. I’ll do it” Scorpius said confidently to Rose’s surprise.  
“I didn’t ask you to come with me…”   
“I assumed that was going to be you next question right?” Rose smiled at him.  
“Thank you. Really I’m just grateful that you listened and didn’t think I was crazy!” Rose sighed in relief. Scorpius looked seriously into her eyes.  
“Hey! You can always talk to me! And I’m never going to think you’re crazy!” Scorpius squeezed her shoulders to reassure her, which seemed to help because she smiled and sighed with relief.  
“So what’s our plan here?”  
“Well…..we don’t EXACTLY have one….yet!”

 

One week later Rose and Scorpius were still trying to come up with a plan to get out of the castle and find the clearing. There secretiveness about the plans was irritating Albus and confusing Thalia. One particular morning they had spent almost all of breakfast next to each other whispering.  
“Okay that’s it! What are you two doing?!” Albus exclaimed annoyed. Rose and Scorpius looked at him panicked.  
“What do you…”  
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about! You two have been sneaking around everywhere, going off by yourselves all the time and now you’re whispering with each other right in front of me! What is this about!?” Scorpius and Rose stuttered for a moment and looked at each other hoping the other would save them; Albus just continued to glare at them.  
“Well uh….” Scorpius never did have to finish that sentence because before he could Dominique and Roxanne interrupted them and sat either side of Albus.  
“Alright Ally?” Dom smirked. Albus rolled his eyes.  
“Albus! And what do you want?” Albus snappily replied. Dominique and Roxy pretended to be offended, and Dominique gasped  
“Ally Potter! That is no way to talk to your captain and vice-captain!” Dominique put her hand over her heart as if she’d been wounded by his words.  
“Yeah Ally! I think we’d expect more from our first line chaser!...of course there were plenty of others that tried out if you’re not interested in the position anymore…” Albus’ eyes lit up with excitement as Roxanne teased him.  
“Wait! I got on the team!?” Albus nearly squealed   
“Shh the line ups supposed to announce this afternoon but we wanted to tell you in person! Oh and rub it in James and Fred’s faces that you got on the team in second year and it took them till 3rd year! They’ll be dead jealous!” Dominique and Roxanne got up to leave.   
“Thank you so much!”  
“Don’t thank us! We didn’t choose you cause your family we choose you because you were good out there! Now keep it up!” Roxanne reassured. They were about to leave when Roxy noticed Scorpius’ face drop completely.  
“You too Malfoy! Seekers an important job I expect you to keep training to keep it!” Dominique gave him a warning glance before she walked off.  
“I…I made seeker?” was all a shocked Scorpius could manage. Rose beamed and looked between her cousin and Scorpius.  
“And you both said you’d never do it! I knew you would!” Rose flung her arms around Scorpius which shocked him back to life as he hugged her back.  
“We made the quiditch team!” Albus reminded himself.

 

2 months passed and Scorpius and Albus trained almost every day. As the months passed though Rose became increasingly frustrated with herself for not being able to find a way back to the clearing, or a way to sneak out of the castle. Albus was also getting more annoyed but at Rose and Scorpius, whenever they weren’t training Scorpius was always with Rose! He was beginning to miss when they hated each other! And they’d always deny whatever they were doing together; clearly he was being left out.   
Eventually after months of practicing the time came for the first quiditch match, it was against Ravenclaw and both Albus and Scorpius were shaking with nerves before they entered the pitch. They looked into the stand just before the game and spotted Rose and Thalia sat next to each other cheering, although Scorpius noticed Rose also looked a bit impatient. It was only Albus who noticed Sienna sat behind them which seemed odd to him, considering that it wasn’t compulsory for everyone in the school to come and Sienna’s house weren’t playing today.  
During the game Albus scored 6 goals, James scored 5 and Fred scored 1. Scorpius managed to catch the snitch as well making Gryffindor win 220- 60. The celebrations and cheers as Scorpius held up the snitch were completely overwhelming for him. When they dismounted there brooms Albus was surrounded by hugs from his family, eventually he broke free and ran to Scorpius to hug him and pat his back.   
“That was AMAZING! The way you knocked past Gwen to get the snitch was incredible!” Albus cheered.  
“No! That last goal after you stole the ball from Kris was incredible!” Scorpius stopped laughing when he saw Rose run towards them at full speed.   
“Scorpius! We need to go!” Rose shouted grabbing his arm and trying to pull him away.  
“What now!? Bu the celebrations….” Albus stared at her shocked.  
“It was great game, congratulations on the win, you guys were so good but Scorpius and I NEED to go NOW!” Scorpius looked at Albus apologetically.  
“What could be more important than celebrating our first win!? Where do you need to go!?” Albus shouted completely fed up of being excluded.  
“Sorry Al….i might make it back later!” Scorpius shouted and he followed Rose back out of the quiditch pitch. Albus stared at them disbelievingly when Sienna walked up to him.  
“Congratulations big shot, highest scorer of your first match. Don’t go getting a big head now!” Sienna smirked. Albus crossed him arms and angrily snatched his broom up from the ground.   
“Not now Sienna! Can you at least save the merciless teasing for tomorrow? I’m not in the mood!” Albus started walking away but Sienna grabbed his arm tightly and pulled him back.  
“Don’t talk to me like that!” Sienna fiercely warned. Everyone was starting to clear out of the pitch now and started heading to the Gryffindor common room for celebrations. Albus should have been terrified of her warning glare and he was momentarily shaken but then he regained his composure and glared right back at her.   
“Why shouldn’t i!? You’re always mean to me!” Albus stood up for himself.  
“Because I wasn’t teasing you! Just because you’re in some kind of a mood doesn’t mean you can take it out on me when I’m trying to be nice to you!” Sienna let go of his arm and crossed her arms. Albus’ expression softened as he gave her a confused look.  
“Why ARE you trying to be nice to me? I though you hated me!” Sienna shrugged, her crossed arms dropped a little.  
“I don’t hate you! …. I tease you sometimes true but I don’t HATE you. Besides there’s no point kicking someone whose too knocked down to fight back. You looked all miserable, even though you were just the highest scorer of you first match! You should be celebrating not pouting!” Sienna boldly insisted.  
“Tell that to Scorpius, all he wants to do is hang around with Rose!”  
“Aw and your jealous that your best buddy is now best buddies with your cousin!” Sienna deduced although her tone was mocking Albus could tell she didn’t mean it harshly. Everyone had left the pitch now and it was just them. Or so they thought, as Sienna and Albus both sat down cross legged on the grass Thalia who had been watching from the entrance at the other side of the pitch ran out.  
“At least she’s not telling me about…” Albus caught himself before he was able to tell Sienna what he was about to tell her.  
“Not telling you what?” Sienna asked leaning back to look at the sky, but when Albus wouldn’t reply she turned back to him.  
“Doesn’t matter you’ll just use it to make fun of us with Jasper again” Albus picked at a piece of grass as he avoided Sienna’s eyes.  
“Maybe that’s why you should tell me… you know I’ll be back with Jasper and his crew tomorrow and there’s no way I’m going to be telling him I was at a GRYFFINDOR match, yet alone here with YOU….no offense”   
“Offense taken!” Albus thought about it for a moment, there was no way Sienna would risk her reputation with the Slytherin’s to give them material to tease them with. Sienna cared for about herself more than making fun of him, and keeping the secret was getting so hard. So he told her, he told her about the mirror and the room and Rose’s glowing red eyes, and the prophecy from divination, everything. By the time he was finished she was completely speechless.  
“How did you do ALL that without anyone finding out!?”  
“With extreme difficulty! Anyway Rose is determined that the mist woman is back and she’s been having these nightmares with prophecy’s in them and ….it’s crazy but every time I tell her she’s dead she gets so angry and I just don’t know how to get this insane idea out of her head!” Sienna thought for a moment before she responded.  
“I think you should believe her” Albus stared at her trying to comprehend what she’d just said.  
“What!? But…”  
“She’s you family! Maybe she’s completely mental and should be locked up in St Mungos but she’s you family and you should always stick by your family and it kind of sounds like she needs someone to stick by her right now.” Albus couldn’t believe it, last year he’d gotten family advice from a death eater’s son and this year he was getting it from someone who bullied him! How had he gotten so out of touch with his family?  
“Is that what you’d do if it was your family?” Albus sighed. Sienna carefully planned her next sentence then said,  
“I don’t have a family. I got left on the steps of an orphanage when I was born with my birth certificate and I’ve been in care ever since. I’d kill to have a big family like yours and if I had one I wouldn’t be taking it for granted like you’re doing! Stand by Rose, she needs you.” Sienna said as she got up and wiped the grass off her skirt. “Oh and if you ever tell anyone about ANY of this I’ll hex you into oblivion!” Sienna left Albus thinking about what she’d said.

 

Rose and Scorpius were alone in the library as everyone else was celebrating, Rose brought out the book she was looking for and threw it down on the table and starting skipping to the page she wanted.  
“I wanted to show you before but I knew you couldn’t get out of the quiditch match. I found it this morning after breakfast, ah here we go!” Rose twisted the book around to face Scorpius.  
“It’s a tracking spell! We can track places we’ve been before, we just cast the spell and it’ll show us the path we took!” Scorpius excitedly scanned through the page but his face fell when he saw one important part of the spell that Rose had properly overlooked.  
“Rose it’s for 5th years!”   
“I know but we’re two of the smartest people in our year! If ANYONES could do a spell 3 years ahead of their age it’s us! We have to try we’ve already wasted 2 months! She could be getting stronger!” Scorpius tried to protest, but he realised how important it was to her that they try so he simply sighed instead.  
“Okay fine we’ll try it but there’s still the matter of actually getting out of the castle! Do you have a plan for that too cause getting past the caretakers is not going to be easy…” Rose bit her lip and looked at Scorpius nervously.  
“I’ve been think about that and I have an idea … it’s mad though! And it’s going to require you to lie your head off! It’s also pretty risky so I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure there was no other way but ….”  
“This whole plan is risky and mad! What do we have to do?”  
“Meet me tomorrow morning after breakfast by the room or requirement and I’ll explain everything I promise” Scorpius glanced at Rose worried and wondering what he had gotten himself into.


	10. Part 2 Chapter 4

That night even though there were extremely noisy celebrations going on Albus choose to sit by himself on the sofa. People kept coming up to him though and congratulating him and his brother and cousins kept trying to pull him up to join in. Albus wasn’t in the right mind to celebrate though, what Sienna had said struck a nerve with him, he’d been putting his fears ahead of his family and NOTHING should come ahead of family. He was so lost in his own thoughts he didn’t even hear Thalia sit down next to him.  
“She’s very pretty” Thalia nervously started. Albus looked at her startled by the fact she’d crept up on him.  
“Sienna I mean…. I saw you with her today. Everyone thinks she’s pretty! You do too don’t you…. Is that why you were talking to her” Thalia looked down at the butterbear in the hands and avoided eye contact. Albus blushed heavily.  
“I….she’s not….i mean we’re not….we didn’t…. it wasn’t like that!” Albus spluttered.  
“Well… you looked pretty cosy out there with her. Don’t let her fool you Al, Sienna only cares about one person and that’s herself. Anybody else is just collateral damage…you’re better than that!” Albus stared at her, shocked at the harshness of her words.  
“How would you even know that?! You haven’t even had a real conversation with her! She’s not as selfish as you choose to believe! You shouldn’t judge her without knowing anything about her!” Thalia looked up at Albus stunned at his outburst.  
“I didn’t realise you cared so much about her…”   
“I don’t!” Albus defensively insisted. Thalia immediately directed her attention to her feet while Albus directed his awkwardly to the wall.  
“I should go…” Thalia began but Albus quickly interrupted her by grabbing her wrist.  
“Wait! Before you go, do you know where Rose and Scorpius went after the game? I need to talk to them….” Thalia’s face turned red at his grip on her wrist, he immediately noticed and let her go.  
“Uh… No.” she said absent minded, then she shoke the blankness out of her head and tried again. “No I haven’t seen either of them since the game” She said and rushed off to the girls’ dormitory.

 

When Rose and Scorpius got back Rose was rushing off to read up on the tracking spell and Scorpius rushed off to practice it, leaving Albus alone again but this time he didn’t give up instead he planning to catch them at breakfast when they couldn’t possibly sneak away from him. Unfortunately for Albus they were both too engrossed in a spell book from the library to talk to him, no matter how hard he tried to get them to listen. Both Rose and Scorpius finished there breakfast early and told Albus they’d talk later and hurried off.  
On their way to the room of requirement Scorpius finally started to question her.  
“So this sneaking out plan? ….How mad and risky is it exactly?” Scorpius hesitantly asked.   
“Don’t you dare back out on me now! I told you before it’s insane!” Rose responded turning the stairs from the 3rd to the 4th floor.  
“I know, I know it’s just…. I want to know what I’m dealing with here!” Rose stopped two steps before Scorpius’ step and turned to face him.  
“We’re negotiating with possible future criminal masterminds for something that I’m pretty sure is against every school rule ever! Does that make you feel better?” Rose sarcastically asked, Scorpius thought about it for a moment then carried on following her.  
“You’re right it’s best I don’t know!” 

 

When they finally reached the seventh floor 3 boys were there to meet them by the wall that held the room of requirement. When they noticed Rose and Scorpius they all turned to face them with one boy taking the lead and staying a few steps ahead of the others.   
The one of the left was so incredibly beautiful that he stood out more than the other two despite being further back; his pale blonde hair fell lightly over his brow exposing his light blue eyes and thick lashes. The boys frame was slim yet with a muscular tone and the blue and gold tie he wore over his white shirt with the sleeves pushed up, revealed him to be a Ravenclaw while the other two were Gryffindor’s.   
The boy on the right could not look more different, his dark tone and short black curly hair contrasted with the other boy’s fair and pale looks. The boy on the right had a wicked gleam in his green eyes and a half smile that suggested he loved every moment of this meeting but at the same time gave off a worryingly unpredictable vibe, like you never knew who this boy would prank next.  
The boy in the middle seemed to be a balance between the two with his tightly crossed arms and smug smile, bringing the serious calmness of the boy on the left together with the manic excitement of the boy on the right. His messy black hair and brown eyes suggested he was wild and impulsive yet his strong stance and control over the two others suggested he was there leader.   
Although Scorpius knew James and Fred the boy on the left was entirely new to him and Scorpius couldn’t help but stare confused at him, after a few seconds he finally shifted his gaze back to Rose who was matching James’ stance ready for negotiation.   
“Rosie” James Acknowledged her father’s nickname for her mockingly.   
“Jamie” Rose countered with his mother’s nickname. Rose gestured to the wall.  
“Let’s not pretend, we all know where we will be meeting so let’s just go in shall we?” Rose closed her eyes and within a few seconds the door appeared and the stand off in the hall way moved into the room of requirement.   
After Rose and Scorpius hurried off Albus sighed and carried on with his breakfast, until he felt someone brush against him and push something into his hand. He quickly looked up and noticed Sienna Vane leaving with Jasper Zabini and his gang of Slytherin’s, she didn’t even look like she’d noticed him but the note in his hand said otherwise. The note simply said ‘Professor Hall’s classroom in 5 minutes’. Albus wasn’t sure if he could wait that long.

 

The room was similar to the one he and Rose had met in before but with more chairs and instead of a coffee table an actual glass table parted the chairs with two on one side and three on the other. Rose gestured her head to the empty chair next to her signalling him to sit down.  
“I thought this meeting was just going to be us. You don’t tell me he was coming along!” James warned.  
“I told you I was bringing the bargain and I have.” Rose calmly stated.  
“Suis-je raté quelque chose? I don’t even know this guy!” the blonde boy exclaimed, switching between French and English fluently. James rolled his eyes and turned away from Rose.  
“Louis! I’ve told you a million times no one else speak French! Please make an effort to speak English for us!” James impatiently asked.  
“FINE! AM I MISSING SOMETHING? I don’t even know this guy!” Louis sarcastically pronounced every word of his previous sentence in English and sticking his tongue out in protest.  
“This is Scorpius Malfoy, he’s here to help me with the bargain, Scorpius you know Fred and James from quiditch but this is my cousin Louis. He’s Dominique’s brother” Rose explained using Dominique to try and hurry up the meeting.  
“Wait! DOMINIQUE is YOUR sister!? Dominique? The scary beater quiditch captain who knocks bludgers open for fun? ….But you look nothing alike!?” Scorpius stared at him confused, despite his seriousness over the negotiations he didn’t look nearly as terrifying as Dominique and she looked nowhere near as beautiful as him!  
“I believe what you’re referring to is the fact that Louis is a full blown veela whereas Dom completely skipped that gene.” Fred explained.  
“You come from a family of Veela’s!?” Scorpius stared at Rose in amazement as she slightly blushed.  
“Not ME! Louis and Dom’s mum is ¼ Veela and my dad and there dad are brothers so only Louis, Dom and Victoire have the Veela blood….there mother also explains the French side.”   
“No offense but…. Are you sure Dominique is your real sister? I mean she doesn’t seem French or …..veela-ish” Scorpius tried to politely put it.  
“Dominique’s a Weasley.” Louis shrugged.   
“Were getting off the subject!” Fred insisted.  
“Right, now you told us you wanted something extremely valuable from us in return for assistance on our latest prank…. which by the way I still have no idea how you know about!” James leaned forward placing his hands on the table.  
“It wasn’t hard! I overheard you three idiots planning it in the common room!”  
“So what do you want? I trust it’s within reason and something we can actually get you.” James calmly replied.  
“Yes, it is actually. For one night, just one night we want…. The invisibility cloak” Rose crossed her arms while everyone else in the room stared at her in shock and horror.

 

Albus rushed off to Professor Hall’s empty classroom to find Sienna sitting at his desk.  
“I thought you never wanted to talk to me again” Albus said confused, Sienna smiled her wicked smile.  
“I don’t believe I ever said that! It’s not true anyway. I just didn’t want you to tell Jasper that I do” She crossed her legs over the table as Albus closed the door and started walking towards her.  
“Why do you even hang around with that idiot? He’s such a jerk!” Sienna’s smile widened.  
“True. But in case you haven’t noticed there aren’t exactly many nice Slytherin’s!” Albus shifted his gaze from the floor to her eyes.  
“You’re a nice Slytherin…” Sienna’s smile faded as she studied him.  
“You think I’m nice?” She asked confused.  
“Nicer than the rest of them anyway. And if there’s no nice Slytherin’s why don’t you just hang around with me?” Albus nervously asked her.  
“Same reason you properly haven’t told your friends you’re here with me. Doesn’t matter if we understand each other or not, our houses won’t and they’d put too much pressure on us.”   
“Why did you invite me here?” Albus shifted the focus of the conversation back on point.  
“I want to know what happened last year. And not just the quick version, the complete details.” Sienna crossed her arms as she regained her superior posture.  
“Why? It’s not like you care…”  
“I’m interested. Plus if Rose is right you’ll need all the help you can get finding the mirror lady, may as well start informing me now” Sienna smirked. Albus hesitated for a moment, a few weeks ago she was picking on him and his friends and now she was volunteering to help them catch a potential killer! Albus waited for a while and then started the story from the beginning.

 

“Invisibility cloak?” Scorpius asked amazed.  
“We don’t have a …” James firmly began but Rose cut in.  
“Don’t even try it! When I was 8 years old I realised the story of what your father did didn’t make any sense, the way he was able to sneak around the castle, the way he snuck into the boat house while Voldemort was there, how he hid from the minister of magic when they came to arrest Hagrid. So much of it was impossible, so I asked my mother and she told me he had an invisibility cloak passed down through his family. And then you started Hogwarts and there was NO WAY you could have done all the pranks you’ve done without it, you would have been caught for sure, so I figured you stole it.” Rose explained, James studied her for a moment then looked at Louis and Fred who both looked worried.  
“So if you found out I stole it, why haven’t you told on me yet?” Rose shrugged.  
“None of my business really”  
“So what? If we don’t give it to you you’ll rat on us?” Fred angrily asked.   
“No point, you’ll just hide it and no one will believe me anyway.”  
“So if you’re not going to blackmail us what makes you think we’d ever give you our most valuable possession?” Louis asked confused.  
“Bribery. You give us the cloak for one night, we’ll return it in the morning, and in return you get an alibi for your ridiculous prank.” Rose simply stated, Scorpius was completely lost but tried to copy her intimidation. Unfortunately James’s also matched her intimidation.  
“We don’t need an alibi we’re going to pull it off without them ever finding out!” Fred confidently insisted.  
“Oh please! You two prank this school so much they won’t think twice before putting you all in detention, maybe worse!” Rose rolled her eyes. James paused.  
“Even so, your family to all of us, even with your perfect record they’ll never believe you; they’ll think we put you to it!”   
“That’s why I’m not offering my own services, I’m offering his.” She pointed to Scorpius who did a double take between her and James.  
“Me? I’m the Alibi? …. But I won’t even see there prank” Scorpius asked confused. Rose stared at him confused.  
“You know for a really smart person, that was a really stupid comment! I told you you’d have to lie!”  
“I didn’t realise it was going to be to the headmaster!” Scorpius nervously added.  
“Remember what we’re doing this for! Besides your records just as perfect as mine, they’ll believe you in a heartbeat!” Scorpius nodded uncertainly.  
“What do you even want the cloak for anyway!?” James asked annoyed.  
“That’s none of your concern! Oh, and the final condition of this deal is no one else finds out about this. There it is the whole deal, take it or leave it.” James looked at Louis and Fred; Fred nodded vicariously while Louis lightly shook his head. James contemplated the offer for a moment before turned back to Rose and Scorpius.  
“Deal.”


	11. Part 2 Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Hey guys! First off i want to apologize for the HUGE hiatus! i've been having a lot of personal trouble and i really appreciate you still following the story and not sending me any hate mail! I'm still going to carry on with the story and hopefully i'll have more time to do it now as for now, all that personal trouble is behind me! So thank you so much for continuing to follow this story, i'm sorry this chapters so late and i promise the next one will be quicker!

Rose was determined to learn how to cast the tracking spell before Christmas so they could find the tomb before they broke up. However this was proving extremely difficult as despite their talents Scorpius and Rose both struggled to actually cast the spell. Most of the time they practised in the room of requirement where they could go without anybody finding out.  
They spent so much time practising that they barely saw Albus or Thalia any more. Which was incredibly frustrating for Albus who had been trying to talk to his best friend and cousin for months. Seeing as how he could not speak to his friends, Albus was spending more and more time with Sienna Vane. Which Albus did not mind as they were becoming good friends however Albus knew that Rose and Scorpius and especially Thalia would never approve of their budding friendship.  
It wasn’t until the beginning of December that Albus finally decided to take matters into his own hands and confront Scorpius and Rose.  
It was Just after dinner when Rose and Scorpius disappeared again only this time Albus finally decided to follow them. It wasn’t easy as they kept checking behind them clearly not wanting to be followed. However Albus managed to discreetly follow them all the way up to the seventh floor. Soon Albus began to recognise where Rose and Scorpius were standing and just like that fateful day last year a door that had not been there before appeared on the wall. Albus quickly ran to it before it disappeared.  
Rose and Scorpius jumped not expecting to hear the door open. Scorpius stared at Albus wide-eyed and confused Rose however looked more angry than confused.  
“Albus what are you doing here!? Where you spying on us?” Rose angry accused. Albus stared around the room expecting it to look exactly the same as it had when he had watched Rose suffer. But the room looked entirely different it had a long corridor that led off around the corner.  
“What are YOU guys doing here!?”  
“That’s none of your business! You didn’t answer my question where you spying on us?”  
“Well you can hardly blame me you guys have been sneaking off for months and you barely talk to me and whenever I ask you never tell me where you’re going or what you’re doing I was concerned.” Albus insisted. “And you didn’t answer my question.”  
Rose and Scorpius both stared at each other for a long time before finally looking Albus in the eye.  
“We thought you wouldn’t understand. We thought you try and stop us…” Scorpius began.  
“We’ve been trying to find out how to get back to the clearing we found when we nearly lost Thalia. We think it might be connected to the mist woman. I think it’s her tomb and that if we can find out how to unlock it we might find out more about her and whether or not she still alive. We’ve been trying to figure out a tracking spell for 5th years, and we convinced your brother to lend us his invisibility cloak for a night. So we can sneak out of the castle and find the tomb.” Rose guiltily confessed. Albus stared at her in shock he couldn’t believe they had pulled off such a huge plan and kept it such a secret.  
“We are really sorry that we kept it a secret but Rose didn’t think that you would approve or believe us. You’re so far in denial about the mist woman that you won’t even accept the possibility that she could be alive how do you think we could tell you that we think we found her tomb.” Scorpius tried to reason with Albus.  
“I don’t blame you.” Albus stared at the floor. “It’s my fault that you had to keep it a secret. I’m really sorry that I never listened to you before and maybe if I had you wouldn’t have felt that you had to do this alone.” Rose stared at him confused wondering what bought this change on. As if reading her mind Albus suddenly started to explain himself.  
“Family is the most important thing and I haven’t been a very good friend to you Rose. I’ve been treating you like your crazy when really all you needed was someone to listen to you and that should have been me. I finally got the sense knocked into me to see how I was wrong and I’m sorry. That’s why I spied on you guys because I’ve been trying to tell you how sorry I am for months, but you never had the time to listen to me which is what it must have felt like for you and it was awful I’m so sorry I did that.”  
Albus barely finished when Rose attacked him with a hug, Rose was so happy that she was nearly crying. She was so relieved to have her cousin and best friend on her side again. She finally let him go after a long time. She wiped her eyes which were starting to water and grabbed his shoulders.  
“Thank you Al. It means the world to me to have you on my side again. But what made you change your mind? I mean you were so determined that I couldn’t possibly be right and now you’ve just changed your mind it doesn’t make any sense!” Albus was so overwhelmed by the hug that he didn’t think about what he was saying next.  
“Well Sienna made me see how wrongly I treated you and helped me realise that I should apologise.” Rose stared at Albus confused and backed away slightly. Albus realised what he had just said and braced himself.  
“Sienna? As in Sienna Vane? As in Sienna ‘the slytherin’ Vane? The same Sienna who teased me, you and Scorpius mercilessly all last year? How would she know about you not being on my side?” Rose glared. Scorpius could see that this was going to be trouble so he did the only logical thing he could do and backed up a few spaces.  
“… I… I kind of… Maybe… Told her about last year.” Albus began to back up to but Rose was advancing towards him at frightening speed. “Before you get mad… She’s nicer than you think… And I know she’d never tell anyone about it. I know I should have asked you before telling her but it kind of just slipped out…” Albus tried desperately to explain.  
“You. Told. Sienna. Vane. That. I. Got. Possessed!” It was then that Rose lunged at Albus and began hitting him in a rage. It took a few minutes before Scorpius realised what was going on and held Rose’s arms back, the task proved more difficult than he thought as Rose was stronger than he imagined when she was in a rage.  
“HOW COULD YOU! HOW COULD YOU TELL SIENNA VANE! I THOUGHT YOU WERE ON MY SIDE! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO HELP ME NOT TELL HER!” Rose struggled against Scorpius’ hold as he struggled to hold her back. Albus moved to a safe distance from her in order to explain.  
“Look she’s not as bad as you think, she was really nice about it and I know I should have asked you first but she’s not as bad as you think I promise! I trust her to keep the secret.”  
“WHAT SO YOUR FRIENDS NOW!? Your friends with the girl who mercilessly teased you and you think she can be trusted? HOW STUPID ARE YOU!?” Rose screamed. Still struggling against Scorpius.  
“Look just give her a chance to prove to you that she can be trusted. Let her help find the tomb and I promise you, you won’t regret it! Please Rose that’s all I’m asking for is a chance.”

“Remind me again, why we’re not telling Thalia about this? She was in on this last year shouldn’t she help us now?” Albus asked confused as they all made their way down to the library where Albus knew Sienna would be.  
“Because, what we’re doing is absolutely terrifying and I want Thalia to have a normal school year, without the risk of death.” Rose replied certainly. Scorpius and Albus nodded acceptingly. When they finally reached the library Albus took the lead in finding Sienna.  
“I see the trio is back together! Well thank God for that!” Sienna said sarcastically after seeing them together, Albus rolled his eyes jokingly.  
“They know. They know that you know about last year.” Albus said seriously  
“Well. Well. Well. Judging by the fact that you’re not trying to tear my head off I’m guessing, you want my help.” Sienna looked between Scorpius and Rose.  
“Albus, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want HER having anything to do with this!” Rose glared at Sienna who smirked, Albus sighed.  
“Rose please, just give her a chance she knows anyway so we may as well let her in.” Rose didn’t break her glare, and Sienna didn’t break her smirk. Scorpius looked between Rose and Sienna and finally decided to interrupt, he stood in between them and held Rose’s shoulders.  
“Rose. I know you don’t want to trust her, but just think what could have happened last year if you had given ME a chance! Don’t judge Sienna by what she HAS done, and start judging her by what she IS doing. Which is offering to help us.” Rose looked at Sienna and noticed her looking away. Rose contemplated it for a moment before sighing.  
“Fine. I’ll give her one chance. But if she blows it she’s out for good.”  
“Well Potter. As much as I love to sit here and be judged by your annoying cousin. What are we looking for here?” Sienna asked directly at Albus. They told her everything Rose and Scorpius had found out in the last few months about the tomb, the invisibility cloak and tracking spell. When they were done Sienna just stared at them.  
“Well that all sounds fantastically dangerous. However I’ve already seen one huge hole in your plan to get us all killed or expelled.” Sienna rolled her eyes. “That invisibility cloak would barely hold you and Scorpius let alone me and Albus as well.”  
“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that, what are we going to do?” Rose wondered.  
“Lucky for you, you’ve got me on your team. And I know how to sneak out of the Castle without attracting anyone’s attention. I’ve done it hundreds of times, I know the path the caretaker takes, the times he does his rounds, and every security system this Castle has to offer.” Sienna leaned back on her chair confidently.  
“But still… Won’t it attract even more attention with four of us?” Scorpius asked.  
“I hadn’t thought about that, I’ve mostly just done it alone. But if you’re so worried about it, then you and Freckles take the invisibility cloak, and me and Potter will sneak out and meet you there.” Sienna agreed. They all decided that they should wait until after Christmas to sneak out so as to give Rose and Scorpius more of a chance to learn the tracking spell. 

 

The train ride home was extremely silent. Rose, Albus and Scorpius had found a compartment to themselves but Rose was still angry at Albus for telling Sienna, and Scorpius was trying to avoid an argument. After an hour of complete silence Rose finally looked up from her book that she’d been reading to talk to Albus.  
“How did it happen?” Rose didn’t look at Albus but he knew she was talking to him.  
“It was an accident. I was angry the night after our first quidditch match and she came to congratulate me. It was nice to be able to talk to someone and I got carried away and ended up telling her everything.” Albus said sheepishly.  
“Why?” Rose asked.  
“Why what?” Albus finally looked up at her.  
“Why her? There were hundreds of other girls who would have congratulated you that night, who would have comforted you, who would have talked to you. So why did it have to be her? Why did you choose to confide in her?” Rose seriously asked. Albus stared at her confused for a moment before answering.  
“I don’t know. She was just there, and she told me she wouldn’t tell because she didn’t want her friends to know she been there. I don’t know why I chose her, it just happened. I’m sorry.”  
“So why did you keep talking to her afterwards?” Rose questioned.  
“I couldn’t just leave her after telling her all that! I needed to make sure that she wouldn’t tell. And then when I found out she wouldn’t, I don’t know I just figured she wasn’t the person people thought she was and it was nice to have a friend again.” Albus turned red while answering. A gesture that had not gone amiss by Rose.  
“I just… I hope you know what you’re doing. She may seem nice to you but that girl could break your heart in two if you let her! And besides is she really as nice as you say she is? Or is that the fake Sienna, and the real Sienna is the one we’ve always known?” Rose left Albus thinking about that for the rest of the train ride home, and the whole Christmas break for that matter.  
How could he know who the real Sienna was?


	12. Part 2 Chapter 6

Christmas at the Malfoy’s was mostly just silent. But Scorpius preferred it that way, as whenever it wasn’t it meant his mum and dad were screaming at each other. Then there was the added joy of this yearly visits from his grandparents. Preparations for their visit started weeks in advance as their visit required a lot of attention. Firstly, they had to make sure the manor house looked just as dark and gloomy as when Lucius and Narcissa left it, which involved hiding any new pieces of furniture Narcissa would deem unacceptable, then all muggle or half born witches or wizards working at the manor would have to warned in advance not to come in for a while as Lucius and Narcissa still maintained their bitter outdated views on muggles. Preparations for acceptable feasts, acceptable clothes and acceptable decorations had to be put in place and lastly the most difficult challenge. Scorpius himself.   
Draco often found himself thankful his parents never visited more often as he was unable to recall a visit that hadn’t ended in Scorpius screaming at Lucius and Narcissa while they criticised Draco’s “relaxed” style of parenting. Scorpius refused to quietly listen to his grandparent’s ugly views on how muggles should be seen and not heard and muggle born witches and wizards had no place in their world. While Lucius and Narcissa only seemed to find fault in everything their son and grandson did. The only person who seemed to enjoy their visits was Astoria, Lucius and Narcissa loved Astoria as if she was their own daughter, Astoria could do no wrong in their eyes as she held similar beliefs and her family were purebloods who taught their daughter what they deemed to be “acceptable beliefs”.   
Family dinners had been tense for Draco since he married Astoria but these last 2 dinners had been a whole new level of tense as no one was able to break the news of Scorpius’ Hogwarts house to his grandparents, Draco and Astoria made the decision when they found out not to tell his parents as while they were barely able to accept his house they knew his grandparents would not. They quickly went to Madame Malkins and bought a whole new Slytherin uniform set to deceive his parents. Scorpius however was less able to hold it tongue about the family’s new secret. The first time Scorpius was told he would have to pretend to be a slytherin he blatantly refused. But after much begging he agreed to keep the secret but his longing to see his grandparent’s reaction was stronger than his promise so he often found himself about to blurt it out so his parents would have to excuse him to his room. He found himself spending most of his Christmas alone as it was easier to keep him away than it was to make sure he watched his tongue all the time.   
But it meant they barely even noticed that he spent his entire Christmas reading about the tracking spell and magical tombs in the Malfoys library. Even when he was back on the train to Hogwarts Scorpius still felt unprepared and nervous for their adventure. On the train back the group had decided they would carry out their expedition in 2 days’ time, to give Rose time to acquire the cloak from James. The next two days were impossible hard for anyone to concentrate on anything but the possible tomb. Rose and Scorpius spent all their free time in the library discussing what they had learnt over Christmas about the tracking spell. Whereas Albus and Sienna spent their free time sneaking away from her friends to discuss how they were going to escape unseen through the castle.  
“Are we sure we should do this tonight? I mean we haven’t correctly cast the spell a single time, we barely know if it even is a tomb and we still haven’t got a plan for if you two get caught, none of this seems like a good idea!” Scorpius expressed his concern over dinner.   
“We are doing this tonight! My dreams are getting worse, I feel like she’s getting stronger and every moment we send researching and studying and practicing she’s moving ten steps ahead of us!” Rose panicked, barely touching her turkey leg.  
“Rose we don’t even know if she’s back at all, they could just be dreams! But I do agree with her, we should do this tonight. You and Rose are the smartest witch and wizard of our entire year if anyone’s going to do the spell it’s you two and as for our escape route don’t worry about us. Sienna can get us in and out of the castle undetected, I know she can.” Albus reassured glancing over at the slytherin table allowing himself to glance at Sienna for a moment before turning back to his friends.   
“How do you have so much confidence in her? Nothing about Sienna Vane says we should trust her and yet you trust her with everything!” Rose frustratingly sighed finally taking a bite of her food.  
“You don’t know her like I do, I know she’ll come through for us this time. I don’t trust her vibe I trust the girl I know, and she won’t fail me.” Albus confidently reassured. Rose sighed. This operation had to be executed perfectly and there was no time for betrayal in her plan, so she would trust her cousin’s judgement.

 

When midnight finally arrived Rose quietly barely put her feet to the ground and tiptoed over to her trunk where she has stashed the package her older cousin has discreetly slipped into her bag at lunch time. She carefully undid the bow and allowed the velvet material surrounding the cloak to fall into her trunk. Rose gave herself to admire how well the cloak worked before wrapping it around herself and tiptoeing over to the boy’s dormitory and gently pinching Scorpius’ arm. Scorpius quickly bolted upright as Rose carefully hitched the robe up just enough for Scorpius to be able to see her shoes. Scorpius crept over to her as she quickly threw the cloak over them both. Scorpius looked at her startled face and smiled. Rose awkwardly shuffled her way to the front of the cloak as she was smaller. Scorpius nervously placed his hands around her waist and they began to walk in unison towards Albus’ bed. Rose gently pinched Albus who seemed more alert than Scorpius and gave them a thumbs up before quickly and silently following them out of the dormitory. As the made it out of the portrait hole Albus spied Sienna behind a gargoyle statue waiting for them.  
“You made it. Where’s tweedle blondie and tweedle know it all?” Sienna excitedly whispered as she came over to Albus. Rose and Scorpius raised the cloak enough for her to see their shoes and Sienna’s eyes widened.   
“Wow that thing really works! Think I can borrow it sometime?” Sienna asked while Albus rolled his eyes and gestured for her to follow him. The plan continues without a hitch as they snuck down the stairs, however when they reached the bottom of the grand staircase Albus and Sienna, and Rose and Scorpius split up as Sienna was aware that the caretaker always patrolled by the main entrance at precisely midnight. Rose and Scorpius snuck past him as he opened the main door to give the ground entrance a quick check over and made their way to the forest entrance where they were set to meet up. Meanwhile Albus and Sienna waited for his back to be turned and slipped into the unlocked door to the great hall. Sienna had watched his routine enough to know he always forgot to lock the great hall doors so the plan was to slip inside wait for him to go then sneak back out and they’d get off scot free. Albus and Sienna pinned themselves to the wall barely breathing, waiting for him to move on but suddenly they heard the clink of the doors moving and realised too late that they were being locked in.  
“I thought you said he never locks this door!” Albus panicked trying his best to keep his voice under control as they heard the click of the lock.  
“He doesn’t! I’ve done this a million times and he’s never locked it before! Why tonight!” Sienna exclaimed her voice raising only slightly.  
“It had to be tonight! Oh god what are we going to do!? We’ll be locked in here until morning then everyone will catch us and know we snuck out! We’ll be suspended! Oh god I can hear his footsteps walking away!” Albus panicked slowly losing his ability to whisper. Sienna slapped Albus’ face and cupped it in her hands. Albus stared at her shocked for a moment and for one crazy moment he thought she was going to kiss him but instead she just glared at him.  
“Pull yourself together!” She dropped his face and looked around frantically “Get in the cupboard!” she exclaimed pointing to the cupboard used to store the logs for the fire places. Albus stared at her like she’d gone mad. “Just go!” She frantically pushed him towards the cupboard. Albus could tell by her panicked tone she meant it. As soon as Albus closed the door of the cupboard with himself in it Sienna began banging as loud as she could on the door screaming for help at the top of her lungs. Albus wanted to burst out of the cupboard and gag her  
‘Is she trying to get herself expelled!? She’ll get caught!” Then as the huge doors opened it began to dawn on Albus what she was doing  
‘She’s taking the fall for me’   
“What the hell are you doing out of bed!?” The caretaker screamed grabbing Sienna by the shoulders. Sienna did her best big scared eyes and began stuttering  
“I….I just wanted…some…some food and then the door….the doors locked!” Sienna began doing her best fake cry. Albus had to admit her scared act was very convincing.   
“Well we’ll see what Miss McGonagall has to say about this insolence!” the caretaker said hauling Sienna in front of him to march her off. Before he pushed her out the door Albus saw her mouth the word ‘Go!’ at him. In his rage the caretaker hadn’t even shut the doors.   
Albus was frozen for a moment in shock. Sienna Vane, the girl everybody had told him not to trust had just saved him from being punished and locked in the great hall over night by accepting punishment herself. She had saved him. That was the moment Albus knew, she wasn’t the untrustworthy, cruel person everyone believed her to be. She was misjudged.   
Albus’ thoughts were cut short by the realisation that he had to leave soon before the caretaker came back and Sienna’s sacrifice was in vain. He jumped out of the log cupboard and snuck towards the entrance slowly opening the doors and sneaking into the grounds before anyone would notice.  
If Sienna was going to sacrifice herself in order for him to continue their mission, he was going to make sure they did it.


	13. Part 2 Chapter 7

Rose was pacing back and forth nervously as she waited for Albus and Sienna, while Scorpius sat on the rock they had agreed to meet on holding the invisibility cloak and trying to keep himself calm.   
“Something’s gone wrong I know it! This isn’t going to work!” Rose panicked.   
“Look!” Scorpius exclaimed standing up and pointing to the distance where they could see Albus running towards them.   
“Oh my god Sienna’s gone to tell on us! She’s betrayed us I knew it!” Rose said. “What happened!? Where’s Sienna!?” Rose ran to Albus grabbing his shoulders with a wide eyes nervous look in her eyes.  
“The caretaker locked the door while we were inside!” Albus tried to catch his breath.  
“WHAT!? I though Sienna said he doesn’t do that!? I knew she was a liar! She betrayed us didn’t she! No good Slytherin!” Rose gritted her teeth in anger.  
“No. No. I hid in the cupboard and Sienna took the fall for me. She’s with McGonagall right now! She took the blame for me so I could get here!” Albus exclaimed. Rose released his shoulders and stared at him confused.  
“Wow. I didn’t know she’d do that for you. That was really nice of her!” Scorpius said in shock. Albus shrugged his shoulders.  
“Well maybe you shouldn’t have judged her before you got to know her! Look Sienna sacrificed herself for us to be able to do this so can we get this started?” Albus asked. Rose nodded and grabbed her wand from where she concealed it in her shoe. She took three steps forward, took a deep breath straightened her shoulders and closed her eyes.  
“Vestigium” Rose announced moving her wand in an eight motion. Her wand started to spark for a moment, then suddenly stopped. Rose opened her eyes and saw that nothing had happened.   
“Vestigium” Rose announced more impatiently this time, again the wand sparked but did nothing more. This continued for half an hour while Albus and Scorpius curled up on the rock.  
“It’s useless, I can’t do this! I give up!” Rose dejectedly fell to the ground. Both Scorpius and Albus startled awoke from their naps and jumped off the rock. Albus sat down next to Rose while Scorpius held her shoulder.  
“Rose it’s okay to find a spell hard, this is a tricky one. But you can’t give up! We are so close to her tomb!” Albus encouraged. Rose sighed.  
“It’s hopeless. I’ll never get this spell; I can research it all I want, but it can’t make my magic any stronger!” Rose sighed and Scorpius rubbed his hand across her shoulder apologetically. Suddenly a thought came to Rose’s head and she jumped up excitedly.   
“Wait! Scorpius! You can do the spell!” Rose excitedly exclaimed.  
“Me? I’ve practiced it just as much as you have! And neither of us has got it right so far, what makes you think I can do this?” Scorpius nervously backed away slightly.  
“Because we both know who here is the best at spells. Scorpius I will never be as good as you at casting spells because you understand the feeling behind them, you’re a natural at casting technique and you put your emotions into your spells, it makes you stronger than I could ever be, so I’m telling you. You can do this!” Rose placed her hands on his shoulder encouragingly. Scorpius gulped and nodded his head. He moved to the entrance of the forest and focused all his energy, soul and mind into the look of the clearing, the three stones next to each other, the pedestal, the way the trees swayed around the clearing like a force field.   
“Vestigium” Scorpius calmed announced and suddenly faint white glowing footprints appeared on the ground in front of him.   
“YOU DID IT!” Albus exclaimed jumping up and running as fast as he could into the forest.  
“I knew you could!” Rose beamed at him, taking a moment for herself to be with him, while Albus ran off.   
“Thank you.” Scorpius whispered in her ear as he pulled her into a hug. Rose’s cheeks burned red as she allowed herself to hug him back.

 

When the three of them finally reached the clearing it was hard not to feel dejected as they explored every corner of the clearing with no sign of any spell appearing anywhere.  
“I don’t get it! The spell book says the spell to open the tomb should be hidden around the area!” Rose tried her best not to cry.  
“Maybe you were wrong, maybe it’s just some rocks.” Albus dejectedly admitted. Albus moved to explore the third rock, but when he leant his hand on it to balance himself the rock began to glow red.  
“YOU FOUND IT!” Rose exclaimed as her and Scorpius ran over. Albus experimented with moving his hand away but the glow began to fade so he placed his hand on the rock again and the glow returned.  
“It’s my hand?” Albus asked confused.  
“Look there’s marking on it!” Rose exclaimed examining the strange markings. “I’ve never seen markings like these before!”   
“Me either! Wait… do these two rocks do that too?” Scorpius asked pointing to the two other large rocks in the circle. Scorpius made his way over to the next rock and placed his hand on it, surely enough this one began to glow as well, except instead of red it started glowing green.   
“These marks are slightly different from the other rock….” Rose examined. “I wonder….” She ran over to the third rock and surely enough when she placed her hand on it, it began glowing blue and revealed its own markings.  
“I think these markings together make up the spell!” Rose excitedly shouted.   
“WHOSE THERE!? SHOW YOURSELF!” They heard the bellow of the caretaker.  
“It’s the caretaker! We have to get out of here!” Albus exclaimed making his way to Scorpius and Rose.  
“But the markings…” Rose frantically tried to continue studying the markings.   
“Come on!” Scorpius grabbed her arm and dragged her into the forest with Albus. “We’ll find out what language they are, then come back another night but right now we have to get out of here!” Scorpius exclaimed as they ran back to the castle.


	14. Part 2 Chapter 8

The trio were all running on adrenaline when they finally arrived back to their dorms, it took another hour for any of them to fall asleep after the excitement and nervousness they had experienced. By morning however, exhaustion had finally reached the trio, who were barely awake at breakfast so it came as a surprise when Albus felt something crumpled be shoved into his hand. He looked up to see Sienna Vane and Jasper Zabinie walking past barely paying any attention to him, but Albus smiled. Knowing what he knew about Sienna, he felt he had a secret with her the rest of the world didn’t know and he took a moment to remember and admire Sienna’s sacrifice. Albus was brought back to the present when he remembered the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. 

If you think you’re getting away without telling me what you found, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. You owe me remember! I got 2 weeks’ detention and 250 points off for you! Meet me in the library after breakfast…. Bring blondie and freckles if you must.   
\- Sienna x

Albus’ attention was immediately focussed on the “X” signed after her name. She’d passed him notes before, like when the met in the classroom and she had sent him the odd note in class but she’d never signed her name with an “X” before. He immediately started analysing what the “X” could mean and what it meant that she wanted to meet with him more than Rose and Scorpius. Although there was a feeling deep in Albus’ stomach that craved to meet her alone, he knew more secrets in the group would just cause problems.   
“Sienna just passed me a note she wants to meet us all in the library after breakfast to fill her in on what we know” Albus explained. Rose and Scorpius glanced at each other before a smirk appeared on their faces.  
“Us or you?” Rose smirked. Albus’ eyebrows knit together confused.  
“What do you mean?” Scorpius shrugged in response  
“Your blushing Albus.” Scorpius chuckled. Albus’ hand instinctively went to his cheeks before he realised and tried to force himself not to blush even harder.  
“Whatever! Look she’s leaving we need to hurry up and meet her!”

 

Albus was beginning to think that Sienna’s note was a joke went they couldn’t find her in the library until they heard a whisper coming from behind a bookcase.  
“Albus!” Sienna urgently whispered Albus, Rose and Scorpius all instinctively turned to the bookcase the whisper had come from when they saw an eye peeking between two books. The three of them checked to make sure no one could see them before joining Sienna behind the bookcase on the private table she’d found. Sienna frowned as she inspected Rose and Scorpius while she sat.  
“I see you brought Blondie and Freckles after all” Sienna sighed  
“I didn’t think I would be right to meet without them. I didn’t want to …. I mean…I did but….I wanted to…. I …..” Albus stuttered trying to find a way to the explain the feeling in his gut that wanted to come alone without offending Rose and Scorpius. Sienna smiled at Albus’ stutter, and Albus realised he’s never seen Sienna smile like that before. Sienna’s smiles were all smirks like she knew something you didn’t and she was basking in that enjoyment, her smiles felt cold and knowing. But this one felt warm, happy, even her lips let out a slight giggle as she raised her eye brows.  
“Anyway! We did find the clearing again and that’s not all…” Rose began startling Sienna and Albus back to reality.  
“Yeah that’s right we found when Rose, Scorpius and I touched the rocks the glowed with these weird markings. We didn’t get a chance to look at them anymore though, the caretaker nearly caught us!” Albus explained.  
“But I have an exceptionally good memory and I couldn’t sleep last night so I wrote out all the markings I could remember…” Rose admitted bringing a piece of paper out from her bag with about 10 different markings on it.  
“So I got 2 weeks’ detention and 250 points taken from my house for some doodles on a rock!? I thought we were going to find some misty woman!” Sienna asked unimpressed with their findings.  
“We think she may be locked inside a tomb and we think those boulders might be the key to opening it. Rose found some ancient tombing spells and we think this could be one.” Scorpius explained. Sienna raised her eyebrows.  
“….okay so those markings are a tombing spell, we go out again do the spell and bam misty woman!” Sienna excitedly explained, resting her feet on the table and leaning her chair back. Albus laughed slightly while Rose rolled her eyes.  
“It’s not exactly that simple…. the book says the spell is unique to every tomb and the spell will be encrypted onto objects around the area…” Rose began  
“The boulders” Scorpius explained. While Sienna glared at him, not sure whether she should be insulted he thought she wouldn’t come to this conclusion herself.  
“…Yes but we found these markings on the boulders and unless anyone knows what these say I don’t think we can read the spell…” everyone gathered around the paper to see if they could recognise it, but one by one they all leaned back dejectedly.  
“So before we can get to this woman we have to translate these …. whatever they are?” Sienna confirmed. Rose slightly nodded silently agreed.  
“Right so let’s get cracking on translating them… Rose you take the runes section of the library, Scorpius you look at meanings of ancient drawings, Sienna you look at ancient spells, I’ll look at ancient languages. We should all copy these down so we can see if we can find anything similar.” Albus planned. Rose proudly nodded, proud of her cousin for taking the initiative. They all began copying Rose’s marks then promptly went off to their classes, making plans to return to the library afterwards to search.

 

As April rolled into Hogwarts, plants bloomed, the tree’s regained their leaves, spring unfolded, the sense of rejuvenation and regrowth was washing over all of Hogwarts, except for Albus, Rose, Scorpius, and Sienna who were quickly losing hope. As hours in the library turned into days, and days into weeks, and weeks into months, the four friends began feeling hopeless as all their efforts yielded no solutions to their current problem. Rose began losing patience after a few weeks as the solution to almost every problem she had in life, studying, was coming up with few answers for this predicament. Sienna lost patience shortly after Rose, as Rose’s defeatist attitude caused many arguments between the pair. Scorpius tried to hold onto hope, but after reading the same book twice without taking anything in, even Scorpius had to admit this seemed to be a failed endeavour. It was Albus, who was desperately trying to inspire the rest of the group to continue researching, as it was the only thing they could do as the markings were their only lead on the mist woman.  
“Come on, you can’t have read EVERY book in the ancient drawings section! Are you sure you’ve checked the restricted section?” Albus asked, one April afternoon in the library.  
“I’ve checked a million times. I’ve read every book in that section 3 times Al!” Scorpius agitatedly responded.  
“Look Al I think we may need to just face that these markings aren’t going to be found in here and discuss our next point of action…” Rose tried to calmly suggest.  
“What point of action!? We have no other plan if we can’t find those markings, it’s our only lead to her and it seems to be impossible to find. We should just give up, it’s clear we weren’t meant to find her!” Sienna retaliated bored.  
“Guys let’s not be so down okay! I’m sure it’s in here! Look let’s just head to potions, and then afterwards we’ll head to the library and have another search, maybe if we switch sections….” Rose, Scorpius and Sienna all groaned at the thought of searching through the library for what felt like the 100th time. They never thought they’d see the day potions would become a welcome distraction.

 

Gryffindor’s and Slytherin’s had potions together on a Wednesday, but unfortunately they had been placed into pairs for the semester. Rose had been unlucky, being partnered with Amilie Dursley who Rose could barely stand. However, Scorpius would argue he had it worse by having to work with Jasper Zabinie who frequently made rude comments about him to his face, rather than working. Sienna found her partner Sapphire Mosley to be extremely tedious and frequently found herself barely able to stay awake during potions. Albus however felt he had got the best deal, as his partner was Thalia Delvine. Albus thought Thalia to be a good friend, if not a little shy, but he found her eccentric hairstyles and talk of funny muggle items made for very amusing potions classes. This April afternoon, the class were attempting to concoct a sleeping potion.   
“So is it three, or four extracts of newts’ heart?” Thalia asked. Albus rooted through his bag for his potions textbook to clear up their query, but found all his time in the library had caused him to forget about his schooling.  
“Shoot, I forgot my textbook! I’m so sorry!” Albus apologetically admitted. Thalia rolled her eyes chuckling slightly  
“It’s fine, just use mine; you give me the instructions and I’ll carry it out? I bookmarked the page.” Albus began flicking through the textbook when he found Thalia’s book mark. Albus figured it was typical for Thalia to bookmark her pages using paper she was doodling on, but it wasn’t until Albus took the folded up paper out of the book that he noticed that in the corner of the page there were drawings he found far too familiar. Drawings that were the same as the ones he’d been staring at every day for months. Albus quickly snapped back into reality when he realised Thalia was looking at him expectantly  
“…oh yeah…um… 4 extracts of newts’ heart” Albus read. As Thalia began searching for the newts’ heart, Albus reached into his bag to get his copy of the markings. He placed them next to each other and saw that, in Thalia’s doodle she had drawn some of the exact same markings Albus had on his paper. The same markings that were on the rock. Albus quickly shoved his paper in his bag as Thalia turned to him.  
“Thalia? These doodles are really cool, I’ve never seen anything like them before… where did you get the inspiration for them?” Albus asked trying to be subtle about his query, when really his heart was pounding at the possibility of finally having a clue.   
“Oh these? There nothing just some doodles I’ve been doing since I was little, my mum used to call it my made up language, I know it’s weird but I’ve been doodling this stuff since I was a kid!” Thalia blushed hard.  
“Really? You’ve never seen them before?”   
“Nope, there just my doodle language.” Thalia joked. Albus smiled with excitement, suddenly longing for potions to be over so he could talk to the group.

 

“Thalia must have got them from somewhere!” Sienna mused. “It’s impossible that she just made up her own language that somehow ended up being a tomb locking spell!” Sienna insisted after Albus recapped his finding in potions class.  
“Are you absolutely certain there the same?” Rose asked. Albus furiously nodded.  
“I’m sure! I got my paper out to compare them, and some of them were the exact same!”   
“And she wasn’t inspired by anything?” Scorpius asked  
“That’s what she says, she said she’s just been drawing these doodles since she was a kid.”   
“She’s clearly lying then!” Sienna folded her arms.  
“Last year Thalia predicted the mist woman, it’s entirely possible she could be connected to this too!” Albus argued, Sienna glared at him.  
“Maybe she’s a little too connected to this!” Sienna scowled.  
“I think we have to tell her what’s going on, see if she can help us translate this stuff…” Albus suggested  
“No way. No. We are not letting her in on this!” Sienna insisted.  
“Sienna! She could help!”  
“Or she could tell on us! I don’t trust her!” Sienna slammed her palms on the table.  
“Fine let’s put it to a vote, who votes we tell Thalia the truth and ask for her help?” Albus asked immediately shooting his hand up. Rose instantly put her hand up as well and Scorpius gave an apologetic glance to Sienna before also raising his. Sienna sighed.  
“You Gryffindor’s really are oblivious, fine let her in on this see if I care!” Sienna stormed out giving Albus one last direct glare. Albus didn’t know why Sienna was so against Thalia joining, but he knew she was involved somehow and their best bet was to involve her, even though another part of Albus wanted to run after Sienna apologising and begging for forgiveness. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that the first part of him had won.


	15. Part 2 chapter 9

When Albus had talked to Thalia in herbology class and told her he wanted to meet her privately after class, in the library it took every inch of self-restraint she had not to explode then and there. Her heart thudded out of her chest as she counted down the seconds until her final class was over. After practically running to the library, only for Albus to pull her into a secluded corner she thought her heart was just about ready to fly out of her chest. However, the moment she saw Rose and Scorpius sitting at the table too looking at her expectantly that excited feeling came crashing down.  
“what’s going on? I thought you wanted to meet me privately?” Thalia asked Albus  
“we do…. We actually have something to tell you….” Albus began but Thalia was barely listening trying to keep her disappointment from showing through her face.  
“it’s about that morning we all went for a walk and we accidently lost you” Rose began. Thalia remembered that morning at the beginning of the school year because after that things had changed. The four of them were so close after their shared bonding experience with the mist woman, but after that morning Rose began getting too busy to spend time with Thalia, infact she’d seen Rose sneaking off frequently with Scorpius, and Albus was so preoccupied he barely gave her a second thought anymore, much to her dismay. Thalia wasn’t blind she could tell something had happened that morning in the forest that they didn’t want her involved in.  
“Okay…” Thalia nervously responded  
“When we split up Al, Rose and I we found something…. we found a clearing with these three rocks… they reminded Rose of this tombing spell she’d seen in a book. We thought it might be the mist woman’s tomb, we think she might be inside…” Scorpius started  
“So a few months later we snuck out again to see if we could find out what it was and … well….” Rose struggled to find the words to explain. “When Scorpius, Al and I touched these rocks they started glowing and these markings started appearing. We think the markings are words to give us the spell to open the tomb.” Thalia was stunned at this point.  
“But that’s not all the markings…. They looked exactly like the ones you doodled on your bookmark.” Albus pushed his sheet of paper with the markings on forward to allow Thalia to see who stared at it in amazement. There was a silence to allow Thalia to digest what she had just heard.  
“So… you have a lead to finding the mist woman… who you now think is alive by the way even though you protested it like mad! …. And you didn’t think to tell me?” Thalia tried to process.  
“We wanted to but we didn’t want you to get involved with this, if it was dangerous” Rose tried to explain.  
“Well it was a little late for that wasn’t it?” Thalia snapped.  
“What do you mean?” Scorpius asked.  
“I was already involved when MY necklace killed …or banished…or whatever a crazy demon spirit! I helped you find her, the entire school thought I was mad because I was sprouting prophecies about you and that crazy spirit! I was already involved!” Thalia explained beginning to get mad. It was at that inconvenient moment that Sienna Vane came around the corner chucking her bag into a spare chair and taking a seat next to Albus instantly learning her chair back and resting her feet up on the table.  
“Sorry I’m late, Longbottom’s classes are never ending! Did you already start explaining to her?” Sienna asked. Thalia’s mouth hung open in shock.  
“….What’s she doing here?”   
“Ah, I see you haven’t got around to explaining my part yet!” Sienna smirked.  
“I told her about everything that happened last year and she wanted to help us, she helped us sneak out the castle….. she’s been helping us.” Albus sheepishly explained. Thalia felt her heart split in two.  
“You told her. You…. You let her in….and not….me.” Thalia stuttered in complete shock.  
“Thalia it’s not….” Rose began but Thalia had finally snapped.  
“No it’s exactly like that! You let a girl who has picked on you, called you names and downright bullied you join in and help you but you didn’t let me, someone who’s actually involved and your FRIEND!? I’ve spent months on my own feeling like I was being kicked out of the group only to be replaced by HER!?!” Thalia finally snapped her calm demeaned finally disappearing.  
“She’s not that bad!” Albus instinctively began sticking up for Sienna much to Thalia’s shock.  
“Not that bad!? Have you all lost your minds!? How could you involve her in this and not me!?” Sienna scowled.  
“Hey sweetie be grateful! If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be involved at all… other than doing weird things you can’t explain you’re no real help to us here. We still wouldn’t have involved you if it wasn’t for your silly drawings!” Sienna tried to defend herself but this only made Thalia angrier.  
“Well congratulations I’m not getting involved! I can’t help anyway. I told you before, I don’t know anything about these drawings there just something I’ve done. I don’t know what they mean or how to translate them, so you don’t have to inconvenience yourselves by inviting me to join. You can have your little gang, I don’t want any part of it!” Thalia stormed off tears forming in her eyes.  
“Well that didn’t go as expected!” Scorpius summarised.

 

Over the next few weeks Albus Rose and Scorpius did their best to try to encourage Thalia to help them and to apologise to her but to no avail. Thalia actively avoided them in the halls, and whenever someone did manage to find her she refused to speak to them. Thalia had been trying to find it in her heart to forgive them for excluding her, but when she thought of those months alone with her friends leaving her out she felt hurt and betrayed, seeing them made it worse so she started going to breakfast early and leaving as soon as they walked in, she changed her routes between classes to avoid them, she even moved seats a couple of time. But that hurt feeling was nothing compared to how she felt when she walked into the library to start her charms essay and found Albus and Sienna sitting in the private corner where they had told her the truth about their adventures, sitting close to each other and laughing. Thalia had seen it coming from a mile away, Sienna started coming to his quiddich games and they both stayed behind on the pitch to talk after every game, the notes she’d seen Sienna hand him class, the way they looked at each other when they thought no one was watching. It was clear to Thalia that Sienna liked Albus, but when she finally saw how much Albus liked her back Thalia couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel her heart splitting in two to see the way Albus gazed at Sienna. Thalia turned around and left the library, hoping no one had seen the tears forming in her eyes. But someone had, Rose Weasley, who was sitting unnoticed at a table away from Albus and Sienna saw Thalia’s hurt expression as she left and decided to follow her to some stairs in an abandoned corridor where Thalia was sat crying.  
“Rose I don’t need this right now, please leave me alone!” Thalia instructed trying to hide her tears as she looked up to see the red head next to her. Rose however decided not to listen, and instead sat down next to her.   
“Friends don’t leave friends alone when there crying!”   
“How would you know!? You haven’t even been my friend these past few months!” Thalia retorted.  
“You’re right! I got so caught up with my nightmares I forgot what mattered more, our friendship. We should have included you Thalia, we never should have kept it a secret” Rose apologetically explained.  
“No you shouldn’t have! I could have helped you that’s what friends do! I could have helped with those nightmares!” Thalia sniffed.  
“So help us now then. Prove to us just how wrong we were to have ever excluded you! Translate the markings for us! Prove you’re a better friend to us than we ever were to you… and let us make it up to you” Rose begged. Thalia sighed blowing her nose on the tissue Rose handed her.  
“I already told you I can’t…”  
“That’s not true! You know a lot more than you think you do. You know what it means if you wrote the markings it means somehow you can translate it! Please try for us…. please try for Albus.” Rose tenderly said. Thalia snapped her head around to Rose.   
“What do you…”  
“I know I haven’t been acting like it lately but you are my best friend…. I know you like him I can see it. I see how your eyes light up when he’s near, and you never seem quite as happy when he’s not. I know you’d give anything to make him happy and help him…” Thalia started at Rose for a moment for looking down dejectedly.  
“It doesn’t matter anyway. He likes her. Sienna. He likes her the way I like him. She makes him happy so I’m helping him by leaving him alone.” Thalia sniffed.  
“Yeah I can see that too. He’s got such a big crush on her! But even though he doesn’t like you the same way you like him, doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. You want him to be happy? Well he’s happy with you in his life as his friend. I know it’s hard to be around them when there being all mushy, heck it’s hard for anyone to be around them, it’s sickening! But wouldn’t you rather be in his life than not?” Rose asked. Thalia thought for a moment before responding.  
“I wasn’t surprised when I found out Albus chose to let Sienna in the group over me, I kind of expected it, but I thought you were my best friend and you choose her over me too.” Thalia changed the subject.  
“I never choose her over you. I didn’t want to give her a chance at first either but then I realised there must be something Albus sees in her so I gave her a chance and you know what I found? She wasn’t all bad. I kind of like her I can’t pretend I don’t, but Thalia you’re my best friend! I would never want to choose between the two of you, but if I had to it would be you, hands down every time!” Rose smiled. This made Thalia laugh slightly as she wiped her tears away. “I know being around her is hard, but give her a chance and you might find she’s not so awful! Thalia we all really want you to come back to the group…Well except Sienna but she’ll warm to you” Rose laughed. Thalia contemplated it for a moment.  
“If I do can you promise me, no more secrets, no more excluding me, you fully let me in?” Thalia asked  
“Promise!”  
“Then I’ll come to the rocks and try and translate!” Rose gave her a giant hug which Thalia reciprocated. Thalia had to admit, she had missed her best friend.


	16. Part 2 Chapter 10

When Rose brought Thalia with her to the library the next time the group had arranged to meet, the rest of the group were shocked. Albus immediately rose from his chair and walked over to her smiling gently. Scorpius looked at Rose with a grateful look. While Sienna rolled her eyes and glared at the pair of them.  
“Thalia! You came?” Albus tentatively asked. Thalia took a deep breath and smiled.  
“Of course. Just because you guys left me out, doesn’t mean I should put everyone in danger by not helping you. I’m still not sure how much help I can be, but I’ll give it my best shot.” Thalia smiled.  
“Oh goody!” Sienna sarcastically rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back on her chair with her legs resting on the table. Albus looked at her desperately.  
“Sienna don’t….” Albus began.   
“No it’s alright Albus” Thalia interrupted “Look Sienna, we got off on the wrong foot and you don’t like me, that much is clear. But this isn’t about us. If that mist woman is back it affects everyone, and if we can find out more about it we have a duty to. Can’t we just set our feelings about each other aside and work together to help find out about this mist woman?” Thalia pleaded. Sienna looked at her sincerely for a moment before masking it with annoyance.  
“Fine whatever. If you can help, you’re in.” Sienna said. Thalia smiled and her and Rose took their seats as Albus returned to his.   
“Okay, so can you translate what’s on the paper?” Scorpius asked pushing the paper towards her. Thalia took a look and her eyebrows knitted together as she studied it.  
“I can translate, but it doesn’t form a complete sentence, they are just words…” Thalia said confused.  
“That’s because we nearly got caught so we had to run before I could take in anymore, these are just the symbols I remember.” Rose recounted.  
“Hey! Speak for yourself I DID get caught!” Sienna said irritated.  
“Okay, well that symbol there I always thought meant magic, and that one there is means death, but that one means life, and there overlapping which I guess means between life and death.” Thalia began writing the translations below the symbols she was pointing too. “This one means trapped I think, but I don’t know how I know that, I’ve never used it before.” Thalia looked at the page in confusion. “I haven’t seen a lot of these before, but I know what they mean somehow.” Albus put a hand on her shoulder in solidarity which caused a bitter glare from Sienna.  
“What about the one I saw on your bookmark? That one you know for sure?” Albus asked.  
“Oh I definitely know that one …. Because it means Delvine...” Thalia said tentatively. Everyone in the room felt a chill go down their spine.  
“So your saying…. Your surname….is in the rocks that could unlock the mist woman’s tomb?” Scorpius slowly asked. Thalia nervously nodded.  
“Wait, but aren’t you a mudblood?” Sienna asked. Causing everyone to snap their heads towards her.  
“Don’t you dare call Thalia that!” Scorpius warned. Sienna shrugged.  
“But that’s what she is!” Sienna protested.  
“Sienna you know as well as I do, that that is an awful word to use to muggleborns!” Rose angrily argued.  
“Whatever, mudblood, muggleborn. What does it matter?” Sienna rhetorically asked.  
“It was used to imply that muggleborns had dirty blood instead of pureblood, it was used to make muggleborns feel like less. Don’t call her that every again.” Albus argued staring Sienna straight in the eyes. Sienna looked down and remained silent in agreement.   
“Anyway she’s right, There’s never been any magic in my family, I’m the first.” Thalia said trying to ignore Sienna’s comments.  
“So how is your family name on a rock at a magic school?” Scorpius asked. Thalia shrugged.  
“I don’t know. It’s impossible to know unless I could translate all the writing, and since we don’t have it…” Thalia trailed of.  
“But…” Rose began  
“Don’t say it!” Scorpius interrupted reading her thoughts.  
“We could…” Rose continued  
“I just said don’t say it! I know what you’re thinking, and no!” Scorpius insisted.  
“We could sneak out again.” Rose finished.  
“NO! It was risky enough the first time, we barely made it out without getting punished!”  
“Speak for yourself!” Sienna reminded them.   
“It’s the only way for Thalia to see the whole thing, and we need to know. We have to other points of action!” Rose reminded him. Albus sighed  
“I hate to say it Scorp but she’s right, it’s our only way of translating the whole thing!” Albus agreed.  
“Hate to burst your bubble but there’s no way! Ever since the caretaker caught me he’s had the school on total lockdown, there’s no getting in or out at night-time!” Sienna pointed out.  
“So we don’t do it at night time, we do it at dawn before class when the caretakers gone to bed. That’s how we snuck out the first time!” Rose reminded them.  
“Fine. I guess were going back out there!” Scorpius sighed.  
“So when are we doing this?” Albus questioned.  
“Tomorrow, we shouldn’t waste any more time!” Rose insisted.  
“Alright, you Goody Goody Gryffindor’s have no idea how to sneak out and that’s where I come in.” Sienna leaned forward producing a map she had drawn of the school. “Right. If we get caught together it will look far too suspicious, were going to have to go in groups of two and one of us can take the invisibility cloak, that way if we get caught we can play dumb and pretend we were going for food.” Sienna began.  
“Okay, so who goes with who?” Thalia asked.  
“Well Albus and Scorpius share a room, it would make sense for them to go get food together if one woke the other up, so I guess they should be together.” Rose logically suggested. “And Thalia and I share too so that would mean….”   
“One flaw with that plan freckles. I’m the best liar and the best at sneaking around. It would make a lot more sense for me to be in a two.” Sienna pointed out. Rose nodded in agreement.  
“Okay so I’ll use the cloak and you can…” before the sentence finished everyone realised the flaw in this plan.  
“Or I could take the cloak, Rose could go with Sienna and….” Sienna’s glare at the next suggestion prevented Scorpius from continuing.  
“Okay how about I go with Sienna, Rose goes with Scorpius and Thalia takes the cloak?” Thalia’s eyes widened at Albus’ suggestion.  
“But if you get caught with Sienna won’t it arouse suspicion…” Thalia quickly thought.  
“But if Sienna gets caught with Thalia, they could pretend they were up early to work on the runes assignment they’ve just been partnered in!” Rose remembered. Much to both girls discomfort they had been partnered together for a rune assignment to use the library to translate 5 pages of runes.  
“That’s true. She’s the only one that wouldn’t arouse suspicion if I was caught.” Sienna reluctantly agreed.  
“So then who gets the invisibility cloak?” Rose asked the boys.   
“I should do it, I’ll get it back off James this afternoon. This is gunna cost me like 2 years’ worth of allowance!” Albus sighed.  
“Okay, so Thalia and Sienna go together and say they’re going to the library. Scorpius and I will go together and pretend we’re going for food. And Albus uses the cloak agreed?” Rose asked. Everyone nodded and they moved onto planning their routes on Sienna’s map.

 

By 5am the plan was in motion. Albus took the cloak and headed through the transfiguration courtyard, Rose and Scorpius snuck out the grand entrance and Thalia made her way to the entrance of the slytherin common room and her and Sienna went around the library to the quidditch grounds.  
Thalia and Sienna were remaining awkwardly silent as they walked in there dressing gowns until Sienna finally broke the silence  
“Look I don’t say this often, and please don’t tell anyone I said it but, I’m sorry for what I called you yesterday.” Sienna awkwardly said. Thalia turned to her in confusion.  
“Thank you for apologising. Why are you apologising to me though? I thought you hated me.” Sienna rolled her eyes at Thalia’s question and took a deep breath.  
“I don’t hate you.”   
“Could have fooled me, you act like you hate everyone.” Thalia looked at her shoes while Sienna looked at the sky.  
“It’s just the front I put up, you have to seam tough if you want to survive in my world. Truth is… and again if you tell anyone I’ll hex you into next year… I’m kind of jealous of you.” Sienna mumbled embarrassed.  
“Me? What could you possibly be jealous of? I’m a mudblood, I’m the school weirdo who does freaky things!” Thalia said in astonishment.   
“You have a family who loves you and no pressure to be anybody but yourself. You may be weird but at least you’re you. And you may be muggleborn, but at least you have a loving family.” Sienna confessed. Thalia decided not to pry into Sienna’s family as her hunched stance and crossed arms indicated she did NOT want to talk about it.  
“You have him.” Thalia nervously said broaching the topic neither of them had wanted to discuss.  
“What do you mean?” Sienna said pretending not to understand.  
“I know you like Albus, and I know you know that I do too. But he likes you. He choose you.” Thalia sadly admitted.  
“He hasn’t chosen anyone.”   
“We both know that’s not true. He definitely likes one of us more than the other. He likes you and you like him.” Thalia said knowingly.  
“Yeah for now, but after you make your move…” Sienna said a small trace of nervousness.  
“I’m not gunna make a move.” Thalia stated. Sienna looked at her bewildered.  
“Why not? You like him too, why wouldn’t you tell him that?” Sienna asked.  
“Because it’s not about whether I like him, it’s about who he likes, and he likes you. He picked you and I’ll respect that, not that he’d change his mind anyway, because I want him to be happy and he’s happy with you, so I’ll step aside and leave you two be.” Thalia said. Sienna smiled a rare genuine grateful smile.  
“Thank you.”  
“It’s okay, and I promise I won’t tell anybody you actually have a heart”

 

Meanwhile Rose and Scorpius were moving down the grand staircase when Rose started talking.  
“Thank you for believing in me, I don’t know if I said that before, but thank you. You believed me about the mist woman before anybody else. Thank you for not thinking I’m crazy.” Scorpius smiled.  
“We had our downs and…. well mostly just downs when we met, but I think you’re the smartest and most sensible person I know. I knew if you had a feeling that something was wrong, it would be crazy not to listen to you.” Rose smiled kindly at him.  
“God you are too nice! I was awful to you when we met! How could you have forgiven me?” Rose asked incredulously.  
“Because I could tell that even though you are incredibly stubborn, and so fierce and independent and just down right hard headed at times, and god knows you have a temper, I could tell that in spite of all that you’re also brave and smart and kind, and when you’re not angry you can be kind of sweet. You’re a hurricane of a person Rose, and I knew when you apologised to me that I’d be stupid not to let you into my life.” Rose stared at him in shock. 

 

By 5.15am the group had arrived at the entrance to the forest. After Scorpius did the retracing spell and the group had found the clearing, Sienna quickly found a seat on top of a nearby log to watch the action. Rose Scorpius and Albus then took to their rocks and with a nod at each other they all placed their hands on the same rocks that had light up for them before. When the symbols began to appear Thalia’s eyes widened.  
“So can you translate it?” Sienna asked. Thalia studied the symbols for a moment before nodding.   
“In English, Rose’s stone says ‘The magic of Delvine bounds this tomb of life and death’ Albus’ stone says ‘To keep this body trapped the blood of Weasley, Potter and Malfoy bound this tomb.’ And Scorpius’ line is ‘Together we protect the world we use this spell and our blood to trap the evil within.’” Thalia nervously translated. The words took a moment to sink in with everyone.  
“Wait, you said that it’s a spell, ‘We use this spell’ so why hasn’t it done anything?” Rose asked impatiently. Thalia shrugged   
“I don’t know, you said I’d just have to say the words and I did…” Thalia nervously said. Suddenly Albus realised something.  
“It’s because you’re not supposed to say in in English. It’s a different language so you have to say it in that language for it to work!” Albus realised. Rose looked at him with a mix of jealousy that he’d figured it out first and pride.  
“But… it’s not a language. I’ve never spoke it out loud, just written it!”  
“But you know what they mean, even when you haven’t read them! And remember last year when you gave that prophecy? You didn’t give it in English, first you gave it in another language one I’d never heard of!” Albus excitedly suggested. Thalia looked apprehensive.  
“But… I don’t know how I said that I was being possessed or something, it wasn’t me!”   
“Thalia I don’t know how but somehow there is a language that only you know. A language no one else in the whole world knows and somehow you DO know it. I don’t know how it’s possible for you to know a language you’ve never learnt but I know you do! You have to try. Stop thinking about it and just trust your instincts, because as impossible as it sounds you know how to speak this language!” Albus begged looking into her eyes. Thalia nodded gently took a deep breath and stood up straight. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them her eyes were glowing gold and she started speaking another language. everyone stared at her astonished as they felt the earth move beneath them. When Thalia had finished speaking the stone platform in the middle crumbled away revealing a hole. Sienna jumped off her log, Rose, Albus and Scorpius left their rocks and the whole group edged closer to the hole. As they peered down they saw a ladder but it was so far down they could not see the bottom.  
“I KNEW IT WAS A TOMB!” Rose sighed in relief. “We need to see what’s down there, there might be more clues!” Rose excited began walking closer.  
“NO!” Scorpius held his arm out to stop her. “We can’t it’s 6.30 breakfast is in half an hour we’ll get in trouble it’s far too risky we’ll have to come back to explore.” Rose begrudgingly nodded her agreement.  
“Okay one problem… How do we close this thing up?” Sienna asked.  
“Well in all the books I’ve read about ancient tombs, saying the spell in reverse can close it why don’t we try that?” Everyone turned to Thalia who nodded and her eyes began glowing again as she spoke her language backwards. Once the stone platform reformed everyone made their way out of the clearing and agreed. Even if they risked getting caught they had to find a way to sneak out tonight to explore.


	17. Part 2 Chapter 11

Knowing what they were going to do that night made classes drag on for what felt like hours for the quintet. Even Rose who was normally the most attentive person in the class was having trouble keeping her mind in class. Luckily for Albus and Scorpius Dominique had called a quidditch practice after class to discuss tactics for their final game of the season against Hufflepuff. Both boys were thrilled to have something to completely take their minds off what could be lurking in the tunnel, Even if it meant having to put up with Dominique’s strict practice regime.   
“MALFOY! It took you ten whole minutes to catch the snitch! You’re not leaving tonight until you get it down to 5!” Dominique shouted pointedly at Scorpius who could do nothing but nod in fear.  
“Ally if you can’t get the ball off of Fred how do you expect to steal it from Melody Finnegan?! She’s twice Fred’s speed, Speed drills around the corners now! And practice your hard turns while you’re at it!” Dominique turned her attention to Albus, who didn’t dare meet her glare.  
“Fred you need to be twice as fast, or Melody’s going to smoke you out there! Are you trying to make us lose!? Stay lower to your broom, 20 laps around the pitch in 20 minutes!” Dominique demanded to Fred who rolled his eyes the second she looked away  
“What on earth do you think you’re doing Potter!? You were showboating out there! That’s gunna cost us points! Practice your aim and you’re not leaving till you’ve made 30 goals in a row!” James was the only member who dared to match Dominique’s glare.  
“Yes sir!” James sarcastically saluted. Much to Dominique’s annoyance.  
“Roxy, your aim needs improving I want you to practice hitting bludgers to Tamika she needs to practice blocking them. Neither of you are leaving until Tamika blocks 30 hits.” Dominique demanded. “GO!” Dominique instructed. The team scrambled to get to their tasks before she shouted more. As Scorpius and Albus mounted their brooms Scorpius looked over to make sure Dominique wasn’t looking and whispered to Albus.  
“Is she always this terrifying?”   
“She’s wasn’t this bad before she became captain! I mean she was always driven but since getting the captaincy she’s become so…” Albus failed to finish his sentence.  
“insanely bossy!?” Scorpius suggested Albus nodded and they took off from the ground. As scary as Dominique was, Scorpius had to admit, she was a good distraction.

 

After quidditch practice, Albus and Scorpius met up with Thalia, Sienna and Rose in the library before curfew to discuss their plans for sneaking out. After much deliberation the group agreed that Thalia and Rose should use the invisibility cloak, Albus and Scorpius should sneak out past the bridge as it was the least risky route and Sienna was going to the take the route the caretaker usually went as she was the least likely to get caught. As the evening continued, nerves brewed within the quintet as they prepared to see what they would find at the bottom of the tunnel. That night the gang barely slept while they waited until 1am to sneak out. As soon as Rose noticed it was 1 o’clock she sat upright and met Thalia’s eyes, who looked just as scared. Rose got the cloak out of her trunk silently, with a nod at Thalia to indicate it was time to go both girls walked down to the common room where they encountered the boys. The four of them opened the portrait hole and slowly left and separated, Rose and Thalia getting under the cloak and heading down the stairs, while Albus and Scorpius snuck across the corridor. When the 4 met again it was outside the forest entrance they nervously look at each other.   
“Do you think she made it?” Rose nervously asked noticing the absence of Sienna.  
“Sienna’s smart she’ll have figured out a way.” Thalia tried to reassure them but Albus had paled. 10 long minutes’ past before Albus finally saw a blonde-haired girl running towards them. Albus let out a relieved sigh as she got closer.   
“Thank god you’re okay!” Albus said as he wrapped his arm around Sienna when she finally got to them. Sienna looked startled for a split second before regaining her composure and pushing Albus off her.  
“Of course I’m okay, I’m just late because the stupid caretaker wouldn’t move along fast enough!” Sienna rolled her eyes.  
“Are we ready for this?” Scorpius asked meeting everyone’s eyes, no one responded for a moment.  
“Whatever we find down there is better than not knowing, right?” Rose asked reluctantly everyone nodded.  
“Do it.” Albus requested of Scorpius, who took a step forward and performed the spell he’d been slowly perfecting after their trips. 

 

When they finally arrived at the clearing Albus, Scorpius and Rose took their places by their rocks and Thalia took her place in the middle while Sienna waited just outside the triangle. Thalia’s eyes glowed gold as she spoke the words on the rocks in the language they didn’t understand. The ground began to open in front of them to reveal the hole they had opened earlier. Everyone gathered around the hole and peered down.   
“Right, let’s go see what’s down here.” Scorpius nervously said as he took the first step down the rickety old rope ladder.   
“Urgh fine if you wimps won’t go next I will, and you call yourself Gryffindor’s!” Sienna sarcastically remarked when no one offered to go next. Sienna made her way down after Scorpius trying to seem confident. Thalia offered to go next realising if she didn’t go soon she’d be last. Albus and Rose looked at each other.  
“You wanna go next?” Albus offered  
“Honestly Albus!” Rose said irritated as she descended after Thalia with Albus tentatively following her. The ladder continued for what felt like miles until finally they heard Scorpius   
“Guys I’m at the bottom!” One by one everyone took their final step to the bottom.   
“Lumos” Everyone cast as light illuminated their wands one by one.  
On first sight, there was nothing extraordinary about this tunnel at all it appeared to just be a plain underground tunnel. It wasn’t until Rose noticed a small pathway leading further into the tunnels that the gang even realised anything was different. The pathway was so small that Scorpius and Albus had to crouch, Sienna had to keep her head down and Rose had to duck from low rocks, Thalia was luckily small enough to not be effected. The gang silently walked through the path fearing making a sound until finally they reached an opening. And one by one they all came to the same astonishment.  
“Oh my god” was all Rose could muster as they laid eyes of the solid gold room. Crystals of all different colours illuminated the ceiling, even the floor which was just mud looked neater than the rest of the caves. But all five eyes landed on the middle of the room at a golden coffin with a black diamond in the middle.   
“Well what do you know, freckles was right. It is a tomb!” Sienna said walking over to the coffin. With Albus trailing behind her. It was Albus who first noticed the plaque underneath the black diamond.  
“Thalia look, is it in your language what does it say?” Albus asked pointing to the markings on the plaque. Thalia studied them for a moment before her eyes widened and she swallowed   
“It says: Do not attempt to open. If you do you will unleash a powerful evil.” Everyone looked at each other nervous.  
“I say we listen to it!” Scorpius suggested everyone nodded.   
“Look there has to be something in here that will give us some clue who she is and how to stop her, let’s just split up and search the room” Rose suggested. Everyone dispersed into different corners of the room; Scorpius began examining the crystals on the wall and the ceiling, Sienna studied a small body of illumined water near the entrance, Rose was observing and trying to see if there was any correlation in the scratches on the wall furthest from the coffin, Albus had decided to examine the coffin itself to see if anything was hidden against it. Thalia however had noticed a small hole on one of the walls and was feeling inside when she felt something solid and cold, so cold she shuddered away when she first touched it. With some effort, she eventually managed to pull the solid item from the hole only to discover a solid gold trunk. The trunk was not very heavy to Thalia rested in on her lap as she looked for an opening. To her surprise, she found markings in her language instead of a lock. Thalia couldn’t help but feel that trying to read the markings were her best option towards opening the trunk, so she closed her eyes to gather her thoughts for a minute, before opening them and reciting a word she didn’t know that she knew. The chest creaked open, and Thalia peered inside to see only a tattered book, filled with pictures, drawings and other clippings that were all being held together by a leather string.  
“Guys!... I found something.” Thalia excitedly stated. Immediately everyone dropped what they were doing to flock to her. Thalia held up the book.  
“I found this trunk in this hole and it opened with my language and this was inside!” Thalia exclaimed gesticulating wildly to the hole and the trunk. Rose took the book and examined it.  
“It looks like a journal of some kind…” Rose mused as she noticed the clippings sticking out.  
“Whatever’s inside will help us I’m sure of it!” Thalia excitedly stood up and pointed to the book.  
“Maybe it was written by the mist woman? Or the people who trapped her? This is gunna help us so much, good work Thalia!” The gang began to disperse again slowly looking around for anything more they could find. Albus resumed examining the wall by the coffin but as he traced the wall his hand met a sharp rock causing the palm of his hand to split open and start bleeding. Albus quickly jumped back and examined his hand, seeing the small cut, Albus did his best not to curse and to push through the pain. Albus lent on the coffin with his cut hand to steady himself, and at that moment the entire cave began to rumble. The Crystals began to shake, the water rippled, and the trunk fell from the ledge they’d placed it on.   
“W…What’s happened!?” Rose stuttered trying to regain her balance.   
“Look the coffin!” Scorpius exclaimed. Everyone’s attention diverted to the coffin which was now glowing. Albus quickly ran away from the coffin and to the centre of the room to join his friends.  
“What did you do!?” Sienna asked Albus as they watched the coffin begin to shake.  
“I touched it that’s all!” Albus desperately tried to exclaim. The room quickly began to fill with red mist and before any of them could move the shape of a woman began to form.   
“Albus you summoned the mist woman! We have to go!” Thalia insisted. However, before they could execute Thalia’s plan an ear-splitting cackle filled the room as the mist woman’s red glowing eyes formed.  
“Run!” Albus instructed and no one wasted anytime diving through the small pathway.   
“YOU STUPID CHILDREN. YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE ME! You have summoned my spirit and I WILL get my revenge for your treachery! YOU NAIVE CHILDREN, THINKING YOU CAN STOP ME I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!” They heard as a red mist followed them through the path. By the time they reached the clearing, the mist woman was close on their tail, and their lungs were burning from running so fast.   
“We…We can’t get up there in time, she’s coming!” Albus stammered. Without thinking Rose shoved Scorpius’ arm around her right shoulder and Albus’ around her left and placed Thalia and Sienna’s hands on her left arm and with her right aimed her want at the sky and shouted   
“AUTEM!” The five of them where thrust into the sky took off so fast, Thalia thought she might throw up. The small hole of light at the top of the tunnel rocketed towards them so fast their eyes had no time to adjust to the brightness as they all landed with a thud and in a heap on the clearing floor.  
But they had no time to rest as Sienna was the first to notice the red mist slowly forming out of the tunnel entrance.   
“What do we do she’s coming!?” Sienna gesticulated to the tunnel entrance. It seemed hopeless to run, as she was twice as fast yet they knew she would reach them any second. The red mist formed into a hand that grabbed hold of Sienna’s leg who promptly screamed, as she felt herself being pulled down. Instinctively, Albus grabbed hold of Sienna’s arms to try to pull her back but the force pulling her was too strong. It was at that moment that Scorpius noticed across the other side of the clearing was a spot clear of red mist, the edges on the mist seemed to be trying to advance but a small stream on sunlight made it impassable. Scorpius lowered his wand to the ground and screamed.  
“LUMOS SOLEM” Scorpius’ wand erupted in bright sunlight spreading throughout the clearing and as it did the red mist recoiled back to the tunnel.  
“THALIA CLOSE IT NOW!” Rose shoved Thalia forward who without missing a beat said the spell backwards and closed the ground up. Albus held Sienna who had collapsed to the floor in his arms while Scorpius doubled over trying to catch his breath and Rose leaned her back in relief. Thalia didn’t move for a while she just stared at the ground.  
“Guys we have to go. She may not be able to come out in the sunlight but if she finds a way out of the tomb….” Thalia began. Albus nodded helping Sienna to her feet as the all returned to the castle.

 

The next morning the five of them were so exhausted from not sleeping that when they met up in the library the next morning they were all struggling to stay awake.  
“So I was right, she is still alive.” Rose started. Scorpius rolled his eyes. “Not that I wanted to be right this time!”   
“Do you think she’ll be able to get out of the tomb?” Thalia nervously asked.  
“Chances are she’s probably already disapperated away.” Scorpius concluded. “We know she can do that, I mean that’s what she did when we expelled her from Rose’s body right?”   
“How did she even get here in the first place?” Sienna asked.  
“Albus accidently summoned her by placing his blood on her coffin. I did the same when I placed my blood on her mirror.” Rose suggested. Albus had been quietly contemplating in the corner and finally decided to voice his thoughts.  
“If she’s so angry with us why didn’t she come before? I mean she knows where we are.” Albus wondered. For one Rose and Scorpius were silent neither to them fully understanding the answer.  
“Because she can’t…. She’s too week without a full body. I mean she couldn’t even touch sunlight. I think she’s getting stronger. Getting ready. She’s planning something, and we need to figure out what she’s planning and why she’d convinced were a part of it.” Sienna theorised.   
“It’s too bad we don’t have that journal, I bet that would have helped us understand!” Rose sighed annoyed. Thalia smiled.  
“But we do!” Thalia reached into her bag pulling out the journal they’d found last night.  
“Thalia! How did you…?” Scorpius began to astounded to finish his sentence.   
“I was holding it when she appeared and I slipped it into my bag when we started running.” Thalia explained.   
“Your amazing!” Albus complemented. Thalia blushed avoiding Albus’ eyes.   
“Nice job Thalia!” Sienna smiled. Everyone turned to stare at her in disbelief. Her eyes darted between everybody.  
“What!? I can be nice!” Sienna complained. Thalia’s astonishment disappeared when she remembered the journal in her hands.  
“Guys I’ve had a quick look at this thing and its written half in English half in my language, but there are parts even I can’t understand. This thing is gunna take a while to translate.” Thalia explained. Rose nodded.  
“Well then it’s settled. You take it home over the summer and translate it or all of us to read next term.” Thalia nodded in agreement and put the journal back in her bag.  
“Summer is a month away, what do we do until then?” Albus curiously asked.  
“If the mist woman really is weakened, she won’t be coming after us. I saw we just continue with school as usual, try and find out anything else we can this summer and regroup next term, it’s not like there’s anything else we can do!” Rose suggested. Sienna looked down in disappointment.  
“What even is normal for us anymore!” Albus mused as they all got up to exit the library and continue with school for the month. A silent thought raced through everyone’s mind as the left the library.   
Whatever was coming next year. They weren’t ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: So there we go guys. Part 2 is complete!!! Don’t worry though Part 3 is coming sooner than you think. Since I now have a lot of free time I’ve decided to do nanowrimo with this story which means you all gunna be bombarded with updates! Part 3 will come either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow depending on how well my writing goes. Thank you for all your continued support – Littlemissnack.


	18. Part 3 Chapter 1

“Lily! Come back here! You’ll get lost! James! Let go of your brother!” Ginny Potter frantically tried to collect her three children ready for their impending train ride. Her husband Harry had gone to collect Lily, who had ran off after a Kneazle she’d seen following their owner, while Ginny forcefully separated her sons who were engaged in a fight with James getting Albus in a headlock. When the whole family had assembled, Ginny took the opportunity to give her instructions before they all ran off again.  
“Right listen up you three! James, this is your OWL year, I expect you to really buckle down and focus this year or you won’t get the NEWT classes you want! And please don’t make Professor McGonagall need to call us in again this year! You broke a record last year, more disciplinary visits from parents than any other student in the history of Hogwarts!” Ginny sternly warned James who smirked.  
“I know best trouble maker Hogwarts has ever known, even uncle George thinks so!” James boasted.  
“That is NOT something to be proud of young man! If we are called in at all this year, then you are not allowed your broom all summer! I mean it James you need to buckle down this year!” Ginny held her son by his face to try to get the warning in. James rolled his eyes and nodded. Ginny decided to take this as an agreement and moved on.  
“Al, please watch out for your sister this year, make sure she stays on track and she doesn’t wonder off. I’m counting on you to be the responsible big brother to your little sister!” Ginny reminded him. Albus nodded his agreement he was used to being the responsible big brother.   
“And maybe try making some new friends this year? It seems like you don’t hang around with anyone but Rose, I’m worried about you…” Albus glared at his mother.  
“Mum I’m fine! I don’t need anyone but Rose! …Besides I have other friends, I’ve told you about Thalia.” Albus insisted still unable to tell his parents he did have other friends, they just happened to be a Malfoy and a Slytherin.  
“That’s Rose’s friend, your mum and I are just worried you might be getting a bit lonely at Hogwarts…” Albus was about to interrupt to tell his father he was fine but his father continued before he could. “Just promise you’ll try find some more friends this year?” Albus sighed and rolled his eyes as he nodded. Knowing it was the best they were going to get they moved onto their third child.  
“And you Lily Luna, you keep safe okay! I know you’re excited for Hogwarts but please be careful! No wondering off or exploring, you could seriously hurt yourself!” Lily groaned but at her mothers stern look she stayed quiet and nodded.  
“Write us as much as you can and just be careful Lils! I need my little girl back to me in one piece this summer!” Harry insisted bending down to Lily’s level.   
“Dad! I’ll be fine, I’m not a little girl anymore! I can handle it!” Lily insisted. Harry sighed knowing fully well he didn’t want to let his daughter go to Hogwarts, but there was no stopping Lily Luna Potter when she set her mind to something.  
“Okay the trains gunna leave soon so you’d better all get on, come give hugs!” James, Albus and Lily stood in a line while there parents made there way down the line giving a big hug and kiss on the forehead to each of their children. As Albus was waiting for his hug he looked around the train station and noticed his best friend Scorpius waving at him. Only this time Scorpius was alone, his mother and father weren’t with him.

 

“What house do you think we’ll be in Hugo?” Lily excitedly turned to Hugo grabbing his wrists. Having already grown bored with the exploding snap they were playing, Lily focused her attention back to Hogwarts.  
“Lily we might get put in different houses!” Hugo reminded her.   
“Of course we won’t, whatever house we go in we’re going in the same one. It’s been you and me since I was born and it’ll be me and you till one of us dies!” Lily dismissed him confidently. Hugo didn’t look so confident chewing on the sleeve of his maroon jumper. Rose who was sat next to her little brother noticed this and swatted his arm away warningly.  
“But what if we are Lily!” Hugo asked casting an apologetic look to his sister.  
“Don’t worry Hugo we’ll be together I know it!” Lily stated. Albus was staring out the window already bored with this conversation when the door opening brought his focus back into the train. Standing in the doorway was Scorpius Malfoy who beamed at his two friends but his face turned to confusion when he noticed the bright blue eyed, ginger girl with pigtails and the scared looking brown haired, brown eyed boy who had started chewing his sleeve again. Albus registered Scorpius’ confusion and began the introduction.  
“Oh Scorpius! Welcome back mate! This is my little sister Lily, she’s a first year” Albus said nodding his head in Lily’s direction who beamed at Scorpius with excitement and intrigue  
“And this is my little brother Hugo… Hugo! Stop chewing your sleeve I’ve told you a million times you’ll get it all wet!” Rose said as she began fussing over Hugo’s sleeve.  
“Guys this is our friend Scorpius Malfoy. Lily I swear if you tell mum and dad I’m friends with him I WILL tell them about the bowtruckle you’re keeping up in your room!” Albus warned. Lily’s face turned to shock.  
“How did you know about Mimsie?!” Lily demanded. Albus laughed and pointed to her pocket which was squirming.   
“I found her when I was looking for my textbooks that you stole!” Lily crossed her arms frustrated.  
“And I don’t need to warn you about this do I Hugo? You won’t tell mum and dad on me, will you?” Rose asked sternly. Hugo shyly shook his head. Scorpius chuckled and took a seat next to a pouting Lily.  
“I’ve always wanted to see a bowtruckle! I read about them once” Scorpius stated pointing to where Mimsie had poked her head out of Lily’s pocket. Lily beamed and began telling Scorpius everything about him until he regretted asking.

 

Half an hour later Thalia had found her way to the group and after promptly being introduced to Lily and Hugo Lily found she loved Thalia even more than she loved Scorpius. This meant that as much as the gang wanted to walk to Thalia about the journal they couldn’t with Hugo and Lily present. It wasn’t until an hour into the journey that Albus finally came up with an excuse to get rid of them.  
“Lil, Hugo we’re nearly there maybe you too should go to the changing compartments and get changed, we’ll keep the carriage.” Albus suggested. At first Lily’s eyes dropped to have to leave her new friends but then a thought crossed her heads.  
“I get to finally wear my Hogwarts uniform!?” Lily excited reached into her suitcase to find it.  
“I don’t think you can say finally when you’ve been wearing it all summer!” Albus rolled his eyes. Rose was helping Hugo find his uniform. Lily almost fell over bounding out of the room excitedly.  
“Come straight back here after, Lily!” Albus warned but it was too late both had already left. Albus quickly turned to his friends.  
“Guys, Lily’s very quick when she’s excited we have 10 minutes tops but hopefully she’ll wander off a little. Thalia what did you find out from the journal?” Albus quickly asked turning to Thalia.  
“Guys, I’m sorry but I couldn’t translate all of it only parts, and the parts I have don’t make much sense. I spent the whole summer in my room trying to read this thing and parts of it I’d never seen before in my life!” Thalia couldn’t meet her friends eyes as she felt them all sighing. Scorpius who was sat next to her put a hand on her shoulder.  
“Look it’s alright, we’ll meet up with Sienna tomorrow night and you can tell us everything you did find out and we’ll see what we have from there. Albus, you’ll tell Sienna we’re gunna meet right?” Scorpius tried to positively reassure Thalia. Albus nodded.  
“Has anybody …. Heard anything from her since we escaped from her? Anybody have any dreams or visions or sightings anything about her?” Rose checked. One by one the gang shook their heads.  
“Me either. It’s weird that she’s this quiet right? Usually one of us is having dreams or visions or something and yet now there nothing?” Rose asked.  
“I say we don’t take that for granted! We don’t know when she could strike next so I say we take advantage of not hearing from her and take it as a good sign!” Scorpius insisted trying to be positive but Albus could tell by Rose’s expression she wasn’t convinced.   
“Well anyway Albus, you weren’t wrong when you said we’d better be going to get changed we will be arriving soon! Rose and I will go to the girls changing cart and you two can keep the carriage.” Thalia said as she began getting her robes from her suitcase. Soon it was just the two boys in the carriage and Albus decided to take this opportunity to talk to Scorpius alone.  
“Scorp? Is everything okay at home?” Albus tentatively asked. Scorpius turned to Albus in confusion.  
“Why would you ask that?” Scorpius pondered. Albus shrugged.  
“Well I noticed you were alone at the station, and I know you are your parents don’t have a great relationship but they’ve never made you go to the station alone before. Is everything okay at home?” Albus sensitively asked. Scorpius sighed and studied the scenery as it passed by the window.  
“Honestly? There is no okay at my house! My parents are former death eaters and I’m their goody goody Gryffindor embarrassment. My Grandparents don’t even know I am a Gryffindor! Okay left my house a long time ago!” Scorpius rolled his eyes. Albus sighed.   
“I know things in your house aren’t okay but why didn’t they bring you to the train station? Did something change?” Albus pressed the issue.  
“Okay fine you win, something changed over the summer and now things are infinitely worse, I just don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet. It was pretty bad but I’m okay now I’m away from home.” Scorpius noticed Albus’ concerned face “Look Al, I promise I’m okay now, but if I’m ever not I’ll talk to you about it, I promise!” Scorpius reluctantly agreed.  
“You don’t have to tell me anything, I just want to make sure you’re okay, you’re my best friend I want to be there if anything bad happens to you!” Albus put his hand on Scorpius’ shoulder. Scorpius smiled.  
“Thanks man, you’re my best friend too and I will tell you eventually. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet. I just want to pretend it’s not happening for now and escape to hogwarts!” Scorpius smiled at Albus who looked like he was trying to find the right words to comfort him but before he could say anything the carriage door flew open.  
“Al, I’m so sorry but I lost Lily again! I was keeping an eye on her this time but this kid walked in front of me and she wondered off again!” Hugo frantically tried to explain. Albus sighed as he and Scorpius got up.  
“Oh for godsake Lily! I swear everything I say goes in one ear and out the other! Hugo stay here incase Lily comes back, Scorpius and I will go find her. Tell Rose and Thalia were we’ve gone when they get back!” Albus ordered as he and Scorpius left to find his wondering little sister.

“Lily!? Lily!?” Albus called looking over the heads of hundreds of students as they piled off the school train.  
“She must be here somewhere!” Rose frustratingly stated.   
“I’ve been in charge of her for 3 hours and she’s already got lost 3 times! For godsake Lily!” Albus grumbled as he continued pushing through students trying to find his sister.  
“Look she’s over there!” Thalia pointed standing on her tiptoes to point to where Lily was examining the magical flowers hanging around the train station far away from the other students and paying no attention to where the other students were going. Quickly the five of them made their way against the crowd to Lily. Albus grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her back to the crowd.  
“Lily! We’ve been through this! You’d have got lost if we hadn’t found you!” Lily rolled her eyes as Albus rushed her over to the groundskeeper who was waiting by the boats for first years.   
“I was fine! I was just looking at the flowers! Ally they have Vitaeflos! There so pretty and they move on their own… Albus let go of me I’m fine!” Lily insisted finally breaking free of Albus’ grip on her arm. Albus held Lily’s shoulders to make her look at him.  
“Lily Hogwarts is so easy to get lost in you HAVE to be paying more attention to the real world!” Albus warned her. Lily responded by rolling her eyes at him. “Look you and Hugo need to get on the boats now, I’ll see you at the sorting ceremony, for heaven’s sake stay with the group…. And keep her hidden if the school see Mimsie they will send her home to mum and dad!” Albus warned. Lily stopped listening when she realised it was time for her to finally go to Hogwarts.   
“Come on Hu it’s time to go! We’re finally gunna see the castle!” Lily exclaimed grabbing Hugo from Rose who was brushing her brothers jumper off and giving him plenty of rules to remember.  
“Lily! Were you listening too…. Lily just stay with the group!” Albus shouted to Lily who was already docking onto her boat with Hugo stepping cautiously on behind her.  
“Hugo! Be careful with the boat okay!” Rose shouted her warning. Scorpius came up behind his friends and put his arms around both there shoulders, making Rose go slightly red.  
“They’ll both be fine, your not their parents you know! Come on lets get a carriage before there all gone!” 

 

Albus, Rose, Scorpius and Thalia sat nervously waiting at the feast waiting for Hugo and Lily’s sorting.  
“Can you see her? I don’t see Lily anywhere!” Albus panicked standing up slightly to try to find his sister.  
“Al, She’s over there behind the blonde girl with pink bow. Stop worrying!” Scorpius sighed.  
“What house do you think she’ll be in?” Thalia asked.  
“I’ve been asking myself that question since James’ went to Hogwarts and I can honestly say I can’t tell. Lily would do well in any house! She’s always going off on her little adventures and I swear that girls fearless so she’d be a great Gryffindor, But she’s so inquisitive about magical creatures and magical plants and she’s always off in her own world trying to figure out how things work so maybe she could be a Ravenclaw, but god save the person who gets in Lily’s way when she’s set her mind on something and when she wants something she WILL get it, so maybe Slytherin but she’s the most dedicated, loyal girl I know and she works so hard to get what she wants when she wants it so maybe a Hufflepuff. The sorting hat really has its work cut out for it with Lily!” Albus mused.  
“Well there’s no way Hugo will be in Gryffindor or Slytherin, He has no determination and he’s not brave enough to be a Gryffindor, he’s scared of everything! He’ll probably either be a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff” Rose decided.  
“LILY POTTER” The headmaster announced. The gang fell silent as they watched Lily excitedly run up to the sorting hat. Unlike when Scorpius had worn the hat, it seemed to be taking it’s time with Lily.  
“She’s been on there for 7 minutes now, She’s officially a hat stool!” Rose nervously told the rest of them.  
“HUFFLEPUFF!” The hat loudly degreed. Albus beamed and clapped louder than anyone in the room. Scorpius couldn’t help but notice the reluctant smile on James’ face.  
“See she’ll be fine in Hufflepuff, Lucy can take care of her!” Rose clapped Albus’ shoulder.  
“HUGO WEASLEY” The headmaster declared. Rose caught her breath as Hugo took a deep breath and nervously sat down shaking. The hat had barely reached his brown curls when it called out.  
“HUFFLEPUFF!” Rose smiled.  
“At least there together!” her and Albus smiled at each other.

 

The next day Albus, Rose, Scorpius & Thalia met up with Sienna in the library after a long first day of lessons. Sienna arrived first and was already sat chewing bubblegum, that Albus couldn’t help but notice smelled very strongly of peppermint, with her feet on the table by the time the rest of them arrived.  
“How was your summer?” Albus asked taking his seat next to her.  
“As interesting as summer in a care home gets! What about you? Was I mistaken or were there even more Potters & Weasleys at the feast last night? You lot breed like rabbits!” Sienna joked. Rose smiled as she got out her notebook.  
“My little brother and Albus’ little sister, They’re Hufflepuffs.” Rose responded. Sienna leaned forward in her chair taking her feat of the table.  
“So I heard, I thought it was like illegal for Potters and Weasleys to be in anything but Gryffindor?” Sienna joked.  
“We have cousins in the other houses too, Molly’s a slytherin, Louis’ a Ravenclaw and Victoire, Lucy, Lily and Hugo are Hufflepuffs.” Albus tried to justify.  
“But we do have more of us in Gryffindor. Me, Al, James, Fred, Roxanne & Dominique are Gryffindors. But just because there’s more of us in Gryffindor doesn’t mean we HAVE to be in there” Rose argued.  
“God your family really does breed like rabbits!” Sienna rolled her eyes as Albus playfully punched her. Sienna kicked him back and it turned into a full-on play war.  
“Guys, let’s try to get back to the task in hand alright?” Scorpius awkwardly interrupted. Albus blushed hard and Scorpius could swear Sienna had turned a lighter shade of pink.  
“Sorry you’re right, Go ahead Thalia.” Albus smiled at Thalia who looked down nervously at the journal she’d placed on the table.  
“Right, well as I told you guys on the train this thing is hard to read. Some of it I could understand and some of it I’d never seen before I translated as much as I could but it wasn’t a whole lot. But what I did find was this…” Thalia said turning the book around to face the gang who peered in slightly closer.  
“That word there…” Thalia pointed out a strange symbol “It’s the symbol for Delvine, and that one there means Malfoy, and that one means Potter and that one…”   
“Weasley” Rose nervously finished.  
“Yep. They keep appearing all throughout the journal. Whatever this journal does contain I think it has something to do with our ancestors.” Thalia concluded looking between everyone’s expression to take in their states on confusion and shock.  
“Are you SURE that’s what they mean Thalia? I mean you could just be wrong, whatever this language is in your head it’s not an translatable language…” Rose suggested.  
“Yeah and she’s the only one who can translate so if she says that’s what those words mean I’ll believe her. So far she’s our only hope at translating this thing” Sienna defended Thalia who looked shocked for a moment before smiling gently at her.  
“What else did you find Thalia?” Scorpius asked.  
“Unfortunately I couldn’t even translate a full sentence just random words, but I did find this…” Thalia said taking a piece of paper from the back of the journal. She handed it to Scorpius who slowly handed it around the group. The paper was clearly a black and white photograph of four men in their 30s standing proudly outside a large building. Judging by their clothes you could tell the photo was old. One of the men stood in the centre with a white lab coat and googles, while next to him stood a man with a thick moustache and a beaming smile wearing what looked like a knitted sweat with light trousers and a golf cap. To the right of the two men stood another man, the thinnest of the three who maintained a strict posture and glared at the camera. This man was in a suit with a top hat and was holding onto his suspenders. Behind him stood the final man, a short man with dark hair and a button-down shirt. Out of all the men this one looked the most out of place smiling nervously at the camera.  
“Is that…?” Albus tentatively asked.  
“I think so…” Thalia replied cautiously.  
“That’s you ancestors!” Sienna replied with certainty.   
“So this journal IS connected to our ancestors” Rose concluded. Thalia nodded.  
“I can’t believe this…” Scorpius stared in amazement at the photo.  
“That’s not all… there was one other word I translated that I think might be relevant.” Thalia sighed flipping the journal ahead a few pages. And placing her finger on one of the symbols.  
“That word there…. It means … Morana. I don’t know how I would even know that word but I do and I think it’s because whoever Morana is I think she’s important to all this.” Thalia deduced. Everyone looked at each other in astonishment. Even though they hadn’t found much from that journal, they had more to go on now. They had something to work towards.

 

That night as Rose’s blinking alarm clock struck midnight she heard a rustling coming for another bed. Rose turned over to see what was happening and to her surprise found Thalia sitting bolt upright in her bed. Thalia turned and her legs hit the floor and she began to walk out of the room. Rose quickly decided to get up and see if she needed anything.   
“Thal…. Hey Thal….Thalia? …. Thalia!” Rose called as she bound down the steps after her. Rose quickly caught up to her and stood in front of her. Thalia stopped moving and stood dead still.  
“Thalia?” Rose asked suddenly noticing Thalia’s eyes weren’t there normal shade of electric blue but instead were glowing gold. “Thalia!” Rose shook her shoulders to try to snap her out of this. Suddenly Thalia responded in a raspy voice that barely sounded like hers, speaking first in the language Rose had come to know as Thalia’s language and then speaking English.  
“The servant of darkness is rising again.   
With the help of her servants she will regain.  
Ones who search her tomb beware.  
For not all can be found there.  
The Heroes will discover more than they know  
If they do not succeeds their lives they will forego.” Thalia recited. Rose dropped Thalia’s shoulders in shock realising they had just received another terrifying prophecy.


	19. Part 3 Chapter 2

Before Rose could even begin to process what she’d just heard come from Thalia’s mouth, Thalia had got off the bed and was halfway to the door. Rose bolted after her.  
“Thalia! Thalia!” Rose hissed trying not to wake the rest of the girls up as she followed Thalia’s possessed body out of their dorm room. Thalia payed no attention and soon Rose began to realise it was helpless to try to wake her. As she stood on top of the stairs watching Thalia exit the common room Rose made a snap decision, she couldn’t wake Thalia alone. She needed Albus and Scorpius. As quick as she could without being too loud she flew up the boys staircase and entered the boys dormitory. She turned to Scorpius first who slept nearest the door.   
“Scorpius, Scorpius wake up now!” Rose hissed shaking his body violently. Rose noticed that the shaking caused Scorpius to smile in his sleep.   
“Rose…. Rose….” Scorpius murmured sleepily. It was then that Rose realised he wasn’t waking up because he’d been dreaming about her. Rose barely had time to prosses this as she was more concerned with Thalia’s disappearance.   
“Scorpius!” Rose hissed more violently finally causing his eyes to flutter open. It took him a few minutes to process that he was no longer in a dream, but as soon as he did he shot up in his bed.  
“Rose!? Why are you….? Where…? How….? What’s going on?” Scorpius finally settled on.  
“Thalia’s been possessed! We have to wake Al she’s left the common room!” Rose warned. Quickly turning her attentions to Albus who was much easier to wake. After recapping the events to Albus the three of them ran out of the common room and down the stairs trying to get as quickly as they could to Thalia.

 

It wasn’t until she reached the grand doors that the rest of them caught up to her. They followed her outside and through the ground to the forbidden forest desperately trying to wake her up.  
“What are we going to do!? She’s not waking up!” Scorpius panicked.   
“I think she’s heading for the tomb…. What if the mist woman’s using her?” Rose suggested. Rose’s theories were proved correct when Thalia pulled back some trees to reveal the clearing. Thalia recited the spell in a docile, flat manner revealing the opening to the mist woman’s tomb.   
“THALIA!” Albus shouted trying desperately to snap her out of it. But Thalia had already began descending down the ladder.   
“We have to follow her, She’s not safe!” Scorpius insisted. They all nodded and one by one entered the tomb behind her. After following her through the tunnels still unable to wake her. They arrived in the tomb, the docile Thalia made her way just past the mist woman’s coffins and finally stopped in front of one of the stone walls. Suddenly Thalia started saying something in her language and her eyes began to glow gold.  
“I think she’s doing a spell we have to stop her NOW!” Rose insisted.   
“THALIA!” Albus screamed grabbing her shoulders and violently shaking her. She continued her spell as if nothing had happened.  
“Thalia… please I need you…” Albus quietly begged still holding her shoulders. “Thalia…”. The entire cave started to rumble again and bits of rubble began falling between them and part of the wall was splitting in two to reveal a hole  
“What’s happening!?” Rose loudly exclaimed  
“It’s her spell!” Scorpius assumed.   
“THALIA PLEASE!....come back to me” Albus begged shaking her shoulders again. Suddenly the entire cave fell silent. And the two fragments of the wall that were beginning to come apart came back together. With quick reflexes Albus managed to catch Thalia as she collapsed to the ground.   
“Thalia? THALIA!” Albus shouted trying to wake the unconscious girl up. Thalia’s eyes fluttered open gently.   
“What…What’s… Where am I?” Thalia asked.   
“We’ll explain later. Right now we have to get out of here and back to the castle!” Scorpius insisted.  
Albus helped Thalia to her feet and they all left the tomb, making sure to close it properly and snuck back in to the castle to get to bed before anyone noticed they’d been gone.

 

“There was a midnight visit to the tomb and you guys didn’t invite me!?” Sienna sarcastically remarked. Albus smirked  
“Well there was hardly time to run down to the dungeons AND keep up with her!” Albus retorted.  
“I still can’t believe I did all that without knowing… it’s quite scary to know she could possess any of us at any point!” Thalia commented they all nervously look between one another from their seats at their table in the library. They all decided to meet in the library the next morning to fill Thalia and Sienna in on Thalia’s possession so they slipped a note into Sienna’s hand at breakfast and they all made their way up to the library after breakfast and before classes started to talk.  
“Look Tha… I know it’s scary but … we’ll make it through this we always do…” Albus rubbed Thalia’s shoulder to comfort her. Sienna pretended not to notice.  
“Hey if anyone should be worried about this it should be me. You sleep with Freckles and Albus sleeps with blondie so you all know someone will wake up and snap you out of it. I could be possessed and no one would find out!” Sienna joked trying to comfort Thalia, which earned a smile of appreciation from Thalia and a frown of concern from Albus.  
“If anyone does get possessed again it’s more likely to be one of the four of us as we have to be used to open the tomb…” Rose logically reminded everyone.  
“I knew this summer had gone far too well!” Scorpius sighed.   
“Should we try and go back to the tomb…figure out what Thalia was trying to open?” Albus asked.  
“No!” Scorpius and Rose replied in unison.  
“Al it’s far too dangerous to go back there! It’s just what she wants! We have to stay away from the tomb and figure it out from there.” Scorpius stated.  
“I just wish there was more we could do I feel like a sitting duck knowing she’s out there and she’s dangerous and there’s nothing we can do!” Albus sighed.  
“For now I think the best thing is just to carry on our lives as normal and try and help Thalia decipher the journal” Rose suggested. Everyone nodded. Albus’ eyes began to wonder around the library in frustration when suddenly he noticed his sister talking to a talking book in the restricted section which she’d managed to sneak into.  
“Oh for Merlin’s sake!” Albus got up grabbed his satchel and made his way over to Lily leaving his friends to rolls their eyes in sympathy with him when they noticed her. Albus grabbed Lily’s arm and shut the book quickly.  
“Hey! What do you think you’re…” Lily angrily began before she was cut off by her brother.  
“Lily Luna what on earth do you think you’re doing here!” Albus hissed at her. “It’s the restricted section! What if Miss Pince had caught you!?” Albus asked wide eyes with annoyance and fear. Lily’s eyes quickly turned from shock to anger as she pushed her brothers hand of her arm.  
“I was fine! No one would have caught me! And even if I was it’s not your job to protect me!” Lily angrily retorted.  
“It IS my job! Dad asked me to look after you and you don’t exactly make that job easy with all your wondering off!” Albus frustratingly remarked. Lily crossed her arms and rolled her eyes I annoyance.  
“I am allowed to wonder Al! You and James do it all the time! Besides you didn’t need to look after me I was FINE!” Lily hissed back. Albus had got fed up with the conversation and grabbed her by the arm again and began pulling her out of the restricted section. When they made it out Lily shrugged Albus’ arm off.  
“You are NOT my father Albus! I am not a baby I do not need to be protected and if I AM ever in trouble I am old enough and smart enough to accept the consequences or get myself out of it without my big brothers help!” Lily shouted as she stormed out. Albus rolled his eyes and left for Transfiguration class forgetting his friends in his anger who had seen the whole ordeal and decided to just follow him up there in a little while.

 

Albus spent the rest of the school day in frustration and his entire lunchbreak ranting about how stubborn and uncooperative his little sister could be. In fact Albus had ranted so much that by the end of the day Thalia, Scorpius and Rose had become sick of hearing about Lily.  
“She thinks she’s so grown up and can do whatever she wants but if I’m not there to help her….” Albus began his rant for the 100th time.  
“YES I KNOW! If you’re not there to help her she’ll get in trouble…” Scorpius began  
“…Or hurt herself” Rose continued  
“…Or get lost” Thalia added  
“…Or fall into a black hole!” Scorpius dramatically ended as they walk up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. “Look Al, I know your just looking out for you little sister but don’t you think you’re being a tad over protective?” Scorpius asked. Albus stared at him in disbelief.  
“It’s true Al, you’ve been going on and on about it all day but I think you’re exaggerating, Yes Lily has a tendency to be a but scatter-brained but maybe she does need to do these things by herself now…” Rose agreed.  
"Maybe you should let her wonder without her big brother always protecting her…. Maybe you should ease up a bit and let her learn how to take care of herself instead of always taking care of her?” Thalia suggested. Albus rolled his eyes.  
“Look none of you know what Lily’s like! She’s always got her head in the clouds blissfully unaware of what’s happening in the ground and it’s my job to protect her from that! None of you are her big brother I am! So but out of what doesn’t concern you!” Albus shouted as he stormed down the stairs and out the main entrance.

Albus was getting so mad that he decided to go from a walk to try and clear his mind and calm him down. Before Albus knew what was happening he was instinctively walking through the forbidden forest. He only became aware of this fact when he encounters a confused looking man in his mid-30s. The man was wearing a grey knitted jumper, black trousers and a pair of smart beige shoes. Albus couldn’t help but noticed the man was dressed in muggle clothes which gave Albus the impression he wasn’t from the school. While he looked, dazed and confused the gleam in his eyes looked slightly manic.  
“Excuse me sir… Are you lost? I can help you get where you need to be…. My name’s Albus Potter… just tell me where you need to be…” Albus gently spoke to the man coming closer. As the man’s gaze fell on Albus he noticed his confused expression turn to an expression on manic joy.  
“Potter? You’re one of them! You’re on of the one’s mistress needs! I must bring you back to mistress! Tell me where you friends are! I want to deliver them all to mistress!” The man grabbed Albus by the arm alarming Albus who tried to step back but the man grabbed tighter.  
“Mistress needs you and your friends come with me!” The man grabbed Albus around the middle and dragging him through the forest. Albus kicked and screamed in protest but the man had used him other arm to cover his mouth. Albus tried to reach for his wand in a panic but the man noticed this and before Albus could do anything he reached into Albus’ pocket and threw his wands as far as he could across the forest. Albus began to panic so he did the only thing he could and bit the man’s hand causing him to yank it away in surprise. Albus’ brain filled with adrenaline could only thing of one word a word he had never even encounter before, a word not even in the English language but every instinct in his body told him to scream it so he did, and as he did his eyes began to glow gold and the man was Thrust far against the forest and repelled away from Albus. Albus began to feel week but with his limited strength he managed to run to his wand and point It in the direction of the man who had just regained his composure. The man began to run through the forest and Albus took chase but soon Albus found himself unable to carry on and he feel to his knees before he felt the entire world go black as he passed out.


	20. Part 3 Chapter 3

The blinding lights of the infirmary blinded Albus and his eyes began to flicker open. Before he was fully aware of his new surroundings he felt a strong hold around his neck and barely managed to see a mess of orange hair with ribbons in on his chest.  
“Oh Albus!” He heard the unmistakeable cry of his sister Lily. The next thing Albus noticed was the grogginess of his head he felt as though his thoughts and comprehensions where made of mist, unable to actually touch but so close.  
“Oh, thank Merlin! You gave us such a scare!” He heard his brothers voice and realised his brother was stood by his bedside too. Albus tried to recall how he’d ended up in the infirmary but his memories hadn’t returned yet.  
“W…what h…happened?” Albus struggled to get out. James realised Albus was in need of water and instinctively grabbed the plastic disposable cup on his bedside table and helped him drink it.  
“Well… I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell us bud…” James sighed as he helped Albus drink.  
“Yeah we don’t actually know. The centaurs from the forbidden forest brought you in, they said they’d found you passed out in the forest but other than that they didn’t hear or see anything!” Lily explained wiping her tears of relief away.  
“You’ve been in here a week and you haven’t stirred, Madam Lakehurst couldn’t work out what was wrong with you, you had no irregularities or anything, no injuries, nothing. She thought maybe you were under a sleeping curse but when she checked you all over for signs of curses or jinxes she found nothing. It was so strange we didn’t know if you were ever going to wake up again!” James explained. Albus stared from his brother and sister in confusion. Slowly his memories of the man in the forest that had attacked him came flooding back but he realised if he told them all now about him he may have to tell them about his involvement with Morana and he didn’t want anybody else that he cared about getting involved with her.  
“I don’t remember… All I remember is going for a walk in the forest … and then nothing.” Albus lied. Suddenly Lily curst into tears and James instinctively wrapped his arms around her.  
“It’s all my fault!” Lily wailed. Albus stared at her in shock, still feeling to week to move.  
“How is any of this your fault Butterfly?” Albus asked calling Lily by the special nickname he came up for her when they were little.  
“Rose said you went for a walk because you were upset about what I said to you that morning. All that stuff I said in the library…” Lily wailed. Albus managed to move his arm enough to beckon her towards him. Lily obeyed and lay down next to her brother.  
“Doesn’t mean it’s your fault! I shouldn’t have been in the forest in the first place! It was a silly fight Lily, brothers and sister fight it’s what we do! It’s not your fault I broke the rules and went into the forest!” Albus insisted. The three siblings stayed there silently for a while James using one arm to rub Albus’ shoulder and another to rub Lily’s back. The silence however was broken soon after when the hospital doors opened with a violent slam and in flew Albus’ mother followed swiftly by his terrified looking father.  
“Oh my Albus! Oh thank Merlin!” Ginny exclaimed in relief hugging her middle baby as Lily wiped her tears and got off the bed. Harry took to the other side.  
“Al! Merlin! Don’t ever scare us like that again!” Harry gripped his son tightly.  
“I’m sorry…” Albus started.  
“Sorry for what? What exactly happened Albus?” Ginny demanded her mood changing quickly from relief to anger.  
“I don’t remember… I just remember going for a walk in the forest and then I don’t remember anything” Albus lied again, he knew he didn’t want to lie to his mother and he knew if she ever found out he had he’d be dead but he didn’t want them involved in any more dangerous stuff.  
“The FORBIDDEN forest! Al what on earth would possess you to go there in the first place!? You KNOW it’s forbidden! Do I have to worry about you breaking the rules now as well as your brother and sister?!” Ginny snapped.  
“No mum… I just… I wasn’t thinking… I….” Albus nervously tried to string together a sentence.  
“Your damn right you weren’t thinking! Why would you do something so dangerous and stupid!?” Harry demanded. Ginny then put a reassuring hand on her husband’s shoulder.  
“Honey, I don’t think you can really lecture him about dangerous and stupid… That’s why I do it remember?” Ginny reminded Harry silently about his own escapades in the forest. Harry started to object but looked at the ground defeated.  
“Anyway! Now that the shouting’s over and I can’t technically punish you until Christmas…. I’m just so happy my baby’s okay!” Ginny hugged her youngest son again.

 

Albus was beginning to get tired of repeating the same lie so many times in one day. Madame Lakehurst was sceptical of his telling of events and Albus could tell she didn’t trust him. The headmaster professor Harlow had also quizzed him and had tried a lot harder than Madame Lakehurst to get the truth but Albus stuck to his lie. Professor Harlow couldn’t punish him for what he had done but could still punish him for being in the forbidden forest and so had taken 300 points from Gryffindor, an act than Albus realises would cause his entre house to turn against him, and 10 weeks of detention. The only people Albus hadn’t had to lie to was Rose, Scorpius and Thalia when they had come to visit him. However, he didn’t want to risk Madam Lakehurst or anyone else finding out so he’d simply told his friends he’d fill them in when he got out. By evening Harry and Ginny had left for home wishing their son a speedy recovering and making him promise to write to them and keep them updated. James and Lily, who had barely left his side had gone to the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff common rooms to get some much-needed sleep and it was now just Rose, Scorpius & Thalia left trying to cheer Albus up. The four of them were discussing what Albus’ mother was going to do to him when he was home for Christmas when all of a sudden the doors slammed and before any of them could notice a flash of a blonde-haired girl was running toward Albus. Before Albus could properly note Sienna’s appearance her arms were round his neck in an intimate hug. Albus, who had now regained enough strength to move, put his arms around her waist and could feel her tears hit his gown. Part of Albus wanted this to last forever but soon she pulled away and met his eyes. Albus suddenly felt Sienna’s soft lips as she kissed him on the cheek. He could barely hear Scorpius’ chuckle or Rose’s gasp he was too in awe. When she pulled away Albus noticed tears running down her cheeks but also a flash of complete fury running through her eyes. As he registered her anger he felt a hard palm hit his face with terrifying force. Albus barely had time to register the fact that Sienna had just slapped him when he felt her face in his neck again and heard a sob.   
“If you EVER do that to me again I will go mad Albus Potter!” Sienna pleaded letting out another sob. Rose, Scorpius & Thalia all looked at each other in shock and surprise and slowly all rose from their seats.   
“We’ll leave you two alone…” Scorpius suggested as he ushered the other two girls out. Albus moved his hands up and down Sienna’s back to comfort her but she just seemed to sob harder. After a while Sienna moved to lie next to Albus with her arms around his chest and his arms around her shoulders.   
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” Sienna warned. “….I thought you weren’t going to come back!” Sienna winced at the memory.   
“I’ll always come back to you…” Albus instinctively responded.   
“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep… especially to me.” Sienna sighed.  
“Do people do that to you a lot… break promises?” Albus asked. Sienna shrugged in response.  
“I’m a care kid. Every foster family I’ve ever had has done that to me. They all promise this time it’ll be different. They all promise they’ll stay. They all promise they love me and want me and next you know I’m back in care.” Sienna couldn’t meet Albus’ eyes and she let her guard down to him. Albus lifted her chin until their eyes met. For the first time ever Albus saw real vulnerability in them and could finally understand why Sienna was so cruel and harsh. If she pushed everyone out no one could hurt her.  
“Yeah well I’m not here to make false promises. I’m not going to make a promise I won’t keep. I’m in your life Sienna and I’m here until the moment you get fed up and push me out. I’m not going anyway. I’m alive and I’m staying.” Albus insisted. Sienna curled into his chest and the two spent what felt like hours curled into each other’s arms until Madame Lakehurst insisted Sienna leave for bed. Despite everything Albus had been through this past week he went to sleep with the biggest smile on his face. 

 

Albus was kept in the infirmary for another 3 days for observation, and in hopes of him remembering what he was actually doing in the forest. By the end of his stay even his brother didn’t believe him.   
“Come on bud! You know I won’t tell anyone! Brother’s code! Just tell me what you were REALLY doing there…” James pleaded as he left the infirmary with Albus.   
“I told you I don’t remember! Why don’t you believe me!?” Albus sighed in frustration.  
“Because it takes a rule break to know a rule breaker and you most defiantly are a rule breaker! But I gotta say little bro even if you can’t remember what you did to break the rules, I’m still a little proud! All these years of trying to get you into pranking and troublemaking and I thought maybe my trouble gene had just skipped to Lily, I was ready to give up! And then you do this! 300 points from Gryffindor! That’s so impressive! Welcome to the troublemaking family baby bro!” James pretended to wipe a proud tear away and his shook his brother’s shoulders. Albus rolled his eyes and shrugged his annoying brother off.  
“I’m not a troublemaker! I ACCIDENTLY wound up going for a walk in the forest without realising and then I collapsed I don’t remember the rest end of story! Now will you please leave! I’m fine I’m going to meet Rose Scorpius and Thalia in the library to catch up on the work I missed!” Albus lied. His brother smirked.  
“Whatever you say little rulebreaker! That Slytherin girl going to be there?” James nudged his brother suggestively. Albus’ tried his best not to blush but his entire face went red.  
“W...What slytherin girl?” Albus tried to lie but his voice broke in the middle of his sentence.   
“Don’t play dumb! The one that kept coming to visit you while you were unconscious!” James teased. Albus’ eyes went wide.  
“Sienna visited me while I was asleep!?” Albus asked trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.  
“Sienna huh?” James’ beamed at his brother embarrassment.  
“I mean… who?” Albus tried to lie but even he knew it was hopeless.  
“It’s cool I won’t tell mum and dad about your little girlfriend. Go have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” James’ laughed as he started to walk away.  
“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do! …. AND SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!” Albus called after his brother who was laughing as he walked away. 

 

When Albus arrived at the library everyone was already waiting for him. He was immediately greeted by a hug from Rose.  
“It’s so good to see you back on your feet and well again!” she sighed as she took her seat next to Scorpius again. Albus’ eyes met Sienna’s who had managed to regain her tough cruel composure since he’d got out of the hospital and refused to meet his eyes.  
“Now it’s just us Al, You have to tell us what happened!” Scorpius insisted. Albus nodded and leaned forward on his chair.  
“I was attacked! There was this man, I think he was a muggle, he sure dressed like one, in the forest and I tried to help him thinking he was lost but when I said my name he went crazy! Started talking about how his mistress needed me and my friends and he had to bring me back to his mistress. He didn’t use any magic but he attacked me and threw my wand away from me. I panicked and did the only thing I could think to do, I bit his hand that was covering my mouth so he jumped away and I didn’t have my wand so I couldn’t fight back but then this word come to my head. It definitely wasn’t English. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before but it was all I could think about so I shouted it and he was thrown away like magic. Then I started getting really tired so I grabbed for my wand and then I must have collapsed!” His friends were all on the edge of their seats listening in captivation.  
“What was the word?” Scorpius asked. Albus repeated it and they all looked to Thalia.  
“Is that… is it Delvinish?” Scorpius asked hesitantly.  
“Delvinish?” Rose asked getting distracted by Scorpius’ new word.  
“Well I figured since she has her own language it should have a name. Delvinish… like Delvine?” Scorpius suggested, Rose nodded bemused.  
“No. That’s defiantly not… Delvinish…” Thalia tested out the name. “But…. It sounds like a word I saw in the journal. One of the ones I didn’t know” Thalia frantically searched her bag for the journal she always kept with her.  
“Wait! So there are two languages? … Delvinish and…. Albusese?” Sienna suggested. Scorpius nodded his approval.  
“Well if Thalia can’t understand the words that come to Albus’ head and Albus can’t understand the words that come to Thalia’s head then there must be! … Nice name by the way!” Scorpius complimented. Sienna grinned.  
“So you did a spell in Albusese without your wand?” Rose tried to wrap her head around it. Albus shrugged.   
“Speaking of the journal though I’ve been managing to translate a little bit more. I found a paragraph that talks about 3 sources connected to a person… it was quite confusing and I’m still not sure what it means exactly!” Thalia tried to offer.   
“Well done Tha, keep trying to translate all you can.” Scorpius put a hand on Thalia’s shoulder in reassurance.   
“Do you think that man, do you think he could have been a servant of…” Rose tried to continue he sentence but it was so dark and scary for her to even think.  
“The mist woman. I thought the same” Albus bleakly finished her sentence.  
“So we think she’s forming some kind of army of muggles to get us?” Sienna tried to sum up.  
“Maybe? I wish we had come kind of a clue as to what she wants, what she’s up to! Why does she need us?” Rose pondered.   
“Look right now we don’t have any idea and after Albus’ encounter in the forest it’s far to dangerous to go back to the tomb so I say we all just try to find whatever we can about her here” Scorpius suggested.  
“What choice do we have!?” Thalia reminded everyone.   
“Let’s just try live our life’s and not think about her. We know she can’t get into the castle there’s too many protection spells, so as long as we don’t leave the castle unless necessary we should be fine. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m STARVING. I’m missing dinner for this!” Sienna tried to be optimistic and cheer the rest of them up. It worked to a degree everyone smiled again.  
“Sienna’s right I need food! Come on let’s head down to dinner!” Thalia suggested. Her Albus & Sienna all got up to leave but Rose & Scorpius remained in their seats flicking through some books they’d got while waiting for Albus.   
“Coming guys?” Albus asked.  
“You go ahead I’m gunna stay here and research for a bit.” Scorpius smiled. Rose looked at him then at her friends.  
“I’ll stay with Scorpius, go on ahead” Rose nodded. Sienna shrugged and grabbed Thalia and Albus by the wrists to bring them with her to dinner.  
“You didn’t have to do that, you can go to dinner if you want…” Scorpius smiled.  
“It’s fine. I’m not really hungry anyway, plus I always feel happier in the library” Rose shrugged. Scorpius chuckled.  
“How did we not get along for an entire year when were so similar?” He mused.   
“Parents” Rose answered half-heartedly.  
“Yeah they tend to ruin everything.” Scorpius frowned in contemplation. Rose studied his face for a moment trying to understand his answer before she spoke  
“Is everything okay at home?” She finally asked. Scorpius chuckled.  
“Okay and my home don’t go in the same sentence. Nothing’s ever okay there” He joked. Rose looked up at him from her book and turned to face him.  
“Something’s different about home now, though isn’t it? I saw you already signed up to stay here over Christmas, you’ve never done that before. Are you okay?” She asked concerned. Scorpius sighed.  
“I’m fine. I’d just rather be anywhere but home.” Scorpius shortly replied. Suddenly to Scorpius’ surprise Rose grabbed his hand.  
“You can tell me. What happens in the library stays in the library.” Rose joked trying to lighten the mood slightly.  
“I’m not ready to talk about it, I haven’t even told Albus yet!”  
“That’s fine you don’t have to say anything but, I think whatever your not saying is eating you up inside and I think you’ll feel a lot better when you talk about it.” Rose suggested still caressing his hand. Scorpius moved his other hand on top of hers.  
“My mothers gone.” Scorpius blurted out. Rose looked at him in confusion.  
“Gone where?”   
“I don’t know. I came home for summer and she was gone. Father wouldn’t even tell me for 2 weeks. Then he finally gave me her notes to me and dad. She said she was sorry but she couldn’t stay in a loveless home anymore and she had to get out. She said she didn’t want to be found and would send signed divorce papers through her parents. She told me she was sorry and she loved me but she had to go and she’d miss me every day. Even said I was the only thing keeping her here in the end.” Scorpius recounted. Rose was stunned.   
“Oh Scorpius, I’m so sorry!” Was all Rose could think to say. Scorpius shrugged.  
“I don’t even care that she left. But why didn’t she ask me to go with her? Why didn’t she take me too?” Scorpius asked to no one in particular.   
“Do you think you would have gone with her if she’d asked?” Rose asked curiously  
“I don’t know, maybe, depends where she was going. I love Hogwarts it’s my home and I can’t imagine ever going to a new school and leaving everyone. Albus is my best friends and Thalia’s so funny and Sienna’s even grown on me… And you Rose. I can’t even begin to fathom leaving you!” Scorpius blushed slightly not meeting her eyes. “But I hate him just as much as she does! I don’t want to live with him either! Why didn’t she take us to live somewhere else in Britain! Why didn’t she at least talk to me about it first instead of just up and leaving one night. Leaving me with him!” Rose caressed him back comfortingly with her other hand.  
“Is that why you’re not going home for Christmas? You don’t want Christmas without her?”   
“No. I don’t want Christmas with him. Now that she’s gone he’s barely gotten out of bed. All summer our butlers had to bring everything to him. It felt like there was no one in our big huge mansion but me. I’ve felt lonely before. Hell I’ve spent most of my life feeling lonely in that place but with him not leaving his room and my mother god knows where it was too lonely. Too empty. We have such a huge house and no one to fill it anymore. It was hard. I understand he’s sad she left but he didn’t even take me to diagon ally or my grandparents manor house…. Or hogwarts. I had to take myself to the train this year. I get he’s sad but I can’t spend my Christmas in that house anymore.” Scorpius had tears in his eyes.  
“I understand. It must have been hard to loose your mother and father in one summer.” Scorpius nodded in agreement. “For what it’s worth though, you did still have a home and a family. Hogwarts is your home and we are you family. Friends are the family you choose after all! You know you can come to any of us, right? When you feel lonely or sad where all here for you. You can come to me if you ever need to talk.” Scorpius smiled at her as they rested their foreheads together.  
“Thanks Rose. Thanks for being so sweet and understanding. Your right it did help to talk about it”   
“Hey, I’m always here for you. You can always talk to me.” Rose smiled. Their eyes met and Rose could see a deep gratitude and relief in Scorpius’ eyes. There moment however was interrupted by Thalia who coughed loudly to alert them to her presence. As soon as they noticed her the pair split apart both turning red.  
“I just came to see if you guys wanted me to bring you any food up... am I interrupting something?” Thalia smiled slyly.   
“N…no.” Rose quickly tried to justify  
“We were just researching! We’ll come down to tea with you now!” Scorpius got up flustered and grabbed all his book.  
“Researching huh?” Thalia raised her eyebrows at Rose who was scrambling to get her stuff together.


	21. Part 3 Chapter 4

Albus and Thalia had spent every free moment they had together in the library, sometimes with the others and sometimes alone, trying to decipher the journal. It was not as easy as they originally anticipated as the words of ‘Albusese’ as Scorpius had now dubbed it, weren’t coming as naturally as ‘Delvinish’ came to Thalia. So far, the pair had translated more than Thalia alone had been able to attempt but they had yet to complete a full sentence. One particular morning in late November the pair were sat in the library with the journal out in front of them feeling particularly frustrated.  
“This word must be Albusese, it’s written slightly differently!” Thalia insisted pointing as the words on the page. Albus could barely concentrate on the word after having been staring at the book for over an hour.  
“Are we sure it’s not Delvinish cause over half the words you say are Albusese are just patterns to me! Urgh! How does this come so easy to you!? I’ve barely been able to conjure up 20 words of Albusese since I did that stupid spell!” Albus sighed resting his head in his arms which were splayed out on the table.  
“You’ll get there!” Thalia insisted “It just takes time. Be patient. You can do this!” The rested a comforting hand on his shoulder.  
“That’s just it! My whole life everyone’s treated me like I’m invisible because I’m the famous Harry Potter’s son. Like they expect me to be able to do anything. But what if I can’t!? Everyone puts so much pressure on me to be able to do anything just like he can but I can’t do anything. I’m not Harry Potter I’m just his useless son who can’t get anything right!” Albus broke down. Thalia stared at him in surprise, Albus had never really talked about his father before and it happened so unexpectedly that it shocked Thalia.  
“Al. I don’t think you can do anything you set your mind to because you’re Harry Potter’s son… I think you can do anything because you’re ALBUS Potter. I know it must be hard having such a famous father but … I think maybe those expectations you feel come more from yourself than anyone else. You expect yourself to be perfect because that’s how you see him. But the truth is you’re not perfect Albus and neither is he. No one is. Your allowed to mess up and fail. You’re allowed to be you and not him. I know you can do this Albus because I know how incredible you are. But if you can’t than it doesn’t matter we’ll find another way. This isn’t all on you. You can do so many amazing things but you can’t do everything Albus.” Thalia tried to reassure him. Albus looked up and smiled tentatively.   
“Thanks Thalia, You’re sweet. It’s just hard you know?” Thalia blushed slightly as she nodded her agreement.   
“I put so much pressure on myself to be the person everyone else wants me to be. The only person I’ve ever felt like I’m enough for is Sienna. I’ve never felt like I have to be anything more than myself around her.” Albus smiled. Thalia bit her lip slightly and took a deep breath before replying   
“You really like her don’t you.” Thalia gave a sad smile.   
“I do. I like her so much and I think she may even like me back.” Albus failed to notice Thalia’s face drop.  
“Oh Albus. I don’t think she likes you back, I know she likes you back.” Albus’ smile widened. “The way she looks at you Albus, Not even Sienna can hide that.” Thalia let her smile drop to a frown when Albus was smiling to himself. Albus shook his head to try and get back on topic.  
“Let’s get back to the journal. Albus said reorganising there scrap parchment with their first attempts at translating. “Thank you Tha, You’re a really good friend.” Thalia forced a smile onto her face as she watched Albus study the journal.   
“Wait. I think I know what this means!” Albus began frantically scribbling.

 

Rose sat at the head of their table in the library the next day as they all met to discuss Albus’ finding. Scorpius and Thalia to her left and Albus and Sienna to her right. None of them had really understood how they’d wound up becoming a gang dedicated to solving the mystery of the mist woman (Who they were still tentative about calling Morana without any proof) but none the less it felt impossible to leave now, they’d got too far in.  
“What did you find!?” Rose said barely able to wait till they had sat down. Albus got out the journal he and Thalia had been swapping between them and hastily unwrapped the leather buckle that was barely keeping the pieces together. He flicking through the pages tentatively, careful not to let any of the frail pages fall out of place until he reached his, He displayed it outwards on the table for everyone to see.  
“So this paragraph here was where Thalia found out about the 3 sources connected to …her” Albus said still tentative to say the mist woman’s possible name. “And she couldn’t seem to translate this bit here which we assumed was what the three sources were. Well that’s because it’s in Albusese. I’ve been staring at this paragraph for days and the words only just came to me.” Albus grabbed one of his scrap pieces of parchment and his pen (A muggle invention his brother had recently started selling around school) and started copying out the symbols into three sets of two. The first two symbols looked like a sideways S with a line through it, and a single curving line that was formed into three loops. Underneath these, Albus wrote the words Staff and Power. The second set of symbols resembled a loop with a cross over it and an arrow with a twisted tail. With these symbols he wrote the words Circlet and Body. The final symbols were a diagonal line with squares either side, and a spiral with a triangle below it. With these symbols Albus wrote the words Soul and, after taking a deep breath, Mirror.  
“I unleashed her soul when I let her out of the mirror.” Rose concluded breaking the stunned silence between them all. Her eyes started to fill with tears. Scorpius grabbed her hand before she could even sniff to comfort her.  
“It’s not your fault. Any of us could have been persuaded by her.” Scorpius insisted.   
“He’s right” To everyone’s surprise it was Sienna who spoke up to comfort her. “She’s processed Thalia too. It’s not about how strong you are it’s about how strong she is. She’s clearly insanely powerful and we’re all 14… well nearly all of us are 14” Sienna joked “She’s more powerful than all of us Freckles. It wasn’t your fault.” Rose stared at her in shock.  
“Thank you Sienna. It’s hard not to feel guilty though when we see that her soul was connected to that damn mirror.” Rose sighed.  
“Look, just because her soul is free doesn’t mean the rest of her is.” Thalia reminded them. “She can only appear in mist form and she can’t touch daylight, clearly her body’s still locked in the circlet and she can’t perform real magic without a body to possess like Rose’s. So her Magic must be locked in the staff” She concluded.  
“So she’s trying to reform. That must be why she needs us then to unlock them and free her.” Albus realised.   
“So we have an upper hand here!” Sienna smirked, pleased to hear a bit of good news for them.  
“Only problem is that we have no idea where the circlet and staff are or even how to find them!” Scorpius reminded them earning an audible sigh from the rest of them.  
“Never mind, that just means we need to do more…” Before Rose could even finish the rest of the gang finished for her.  
“Research!” They all said in unison.   
“I’m getting really sick of all this researching. It’s getting us nowhere!” Sienna complained.   
“But now we have at least something for certain to look for!” Rose reminded them. “We should split up over Christmas and look for different things. It’s the quickest way. Thalia you can try and translate more of the journal since you won’t have any books on magic. Sienna you can study the mirror, see if you can find any kind of magical trace on it or where she was trapped. Since you don’t have magical books either.” Rose said bringing the silver hand mirror out of her bag. It looked as regal as it had when they’d all first laid eyes on it except now there was a long crack down the middle and an in mistakable blood stain in the centre.  
“You kept that thing!?” Scorpius demanded.   
“Yes. To study it. I thought maybe I could figure out how she was trapped in it but I haven’t been able to figure it out at all! Maybe a fresh pair of eyes will help.” Rose suggested. Sienna shrugged and reluctantly placed the mirror in her bag.  
“You keep that thing in your bag?” Albus muttered. Rose chose to ignore Albus and move on.  
“Albus you can look up the staff and I’ll look up the circlet. We can convince our parents to take us to Flourish and Blotts.”  
“Yay” Albus muttered sarcastically “Christmas trip to a bookstore!”   
“I know this is supposed to be serious but any excuse to go to a bookstore is fantastic!” Rose beamed not picking up on Albus’ sarcastic tone. Albus rolled his eyes.  
“What about me?” Scorpius asked.  
“You can look up the word ‘Morana’ See what you can find about anybody named that.” Rose tentatively said the name.  
“Great I’ll use the hogwarts library and I’m sure I can sneak out to Hogsmeade to go to Flourish and Blotts at some point.” Albus frowned at this.   
“Wait. Why would you have the Hogwarts library over Christmas? Are you not going home for Christmas?” Albus asked. Scorpius avoided his glance and Rose met his eyes with a look of sympathy and encouragement.  
“Scorpius… You should really tell him.” Rose tentatively suggested. Scorpius sighed in defeat.  
“Tell me what? Does this have to do with why you came to school alone?” Albus asked. Scorpius nodded. Rose gestured to the other girls who promptly understood and began packing up.  
“We’ll leave you guys alone.” Rose said as she ushered Thalia and Sienna out alongside her. Albus didn’t take his eyes of Scorpius.  
“Scorp? Why aren’t you going home for Christmas?” Albus asked.  
“Because my mother’s gone and my father hasn’t spoken to me since she left” Scorpius summarised. He sighed as he began to recap the story to Albus.

 

Weeks passed and before long it was time to go home for Christmas. Albus ran in to his bedroom in the Gryffindor common room to find Scorpius reading on his bed. Every other bed in the room was filled with trunks and suitcases half packed. Albus rushed over to sit on Scorpius’ bed with a letter in his hands from the owlery.  
“Scorp! Start packing!” Albus beamed. Scorpius gave him a puzzled look as he set his book town on his bedside table.  
“Why? I told you I’m not setting foot inside Malfoy Manor until I absolutely have to!” Scorpius insisted. Albus shook his head excitedly.  
“No you’re not going there. You’re coming with me!” Albus excitedly stated.  
“Wait what?”   
“You’re going to stay at my house over Christmas!” Albus handed Scorpius the letter. “I didn’t like the thought of you spending Christmas all alone so I came clean to my dad about our friendship and I asked if you could stay and he said you’re welcome at our house anytime!” Scorpius looked up for the letter in shock.  
“You…You want me to spend Christmas with you?”   
“If you want to that is!” Albus quickly amended. Scorpius suddenly did something very unexpected and flung his arms around Albus and pulled him into a hug.  
“Of course I want to! Oh Albus! Thank you!” Scorpius beamed. Suddenly a thought came to Scorpius’ head and he quickly sprung off the bed. “Oh my god I have to pack! The train leaves tomorrow!” Scorpius frantically started grabbing his trunk from the end of his bed.  
“I’ll help, mine’s almost done anyway!” Albus smiled helping Scorpius lift his trunk onto the bed. “I should warn you though, the Burrow can get a little crazy at Christmas!”


	22. Part 3 Chapter 5

Scorpius learnt that Christmas at the Potters, Christmas at the Malfoys and Christmas at the Weasley’s were three very different experiences. When Scorpius and Albus arrived at kings cross station Scorpius expected to be taken straight to the Weasley’s burrows home, where Albus had often spent his Christmases but Scorpius was corrected on this as he sat in the Potters car between Albus and Lily.  
“Oh no Scorp we don’t go to the Burrows until the 23rd! There’s 27 people spending Christmas together 28 this year with you! We don’t leave until last minute and we only stay a week and a bit, we always leave January 2nd to go home and pack. We don’t like to overcrowd Grandma Molly and Grandpa Arthur for too long.” Albus explained  
“Yeah so we spend the week between arriving and going to The Burrows at our home.” James’ continued leaning back from the front seat to look at Scorpius  
“And the week between leaving The Burrows and going back to school!” Lily added.  
“So we’re heading to your house?” Scorpius asked Albus who nodded in response. “Are you sure that’s okay Mr Potter?” Scorpius tentatively asked.  
“Please Scorpius I’ve told you, It’s Harry. And of course it is. Gin and I are happy to help any of Al’s friends. I would have hated spending Christmas alone when I was in Hogwarts. But my friends stuck by me and never let me spend it alone again. I’m just glad Al has become that friend.” Harry smiled looking back at Scorpius in the rear-view mirror.   
It was at that moment that Scorpius realised he really couldn’t understand what his grandparents had been telling him all his life. His grandparents had never been silent about their opposition to Harry Potter. They’d made him out to be a evil man intent on spreading mudblood loving filth. Yet here he was offering a total stranger his home for Christmas so he wouldn’t have to suffer as he had. Nothing about that seemed evil to Scorpius.

 

The week leading up to The Burrows trip was so pleasant, Scorpius had almost forgotten how awful and lonely his Christmases had been in the past. Ginny had given him their guest room and Scorpius found it odd that she made sure to fill the silences with pleasant conversation. She even seemed interested in him and his life. She’d asked him about school and quidditch and his interests and listened to him. Harry had made sure to give him the largest portions of food and he even let Scorpius decide what they were going to eat, He even smuggled him some cookies as a midnight snack once. James had spent the week training with him and Albus on their brooms whenever they could in the Potters garden, as annoying as James Potter could be with his constant pranking and mischief, Scorpius had to admit he was an amazing quidditch player. But a lot of the time Lily got irritated because her parents weren’t letting her fly with her brothers until next year. Scorpius found Lily just as interesting as her brothers though. The first morning he’d been at the Potters he’d accidently walked past Lily’s room as she was talking to a shoebox. Lily then let Scorpius into her butterfly covered bedroom to show him her most prized procession, her shoebox filled with magical creatures she’d found and taken care off. For the rest of the week then whenever the boys to a break from quidditch Lily would bring Scorpius to play with her creatures which Scorpius found fascinating. But he undoubtable spent most of his time with Albus though as they spent the evenings together in either Scorpius guest room or Albus’ bedroom chilling out as Albus showed Scorpius his muggle comic book collection that Scorpius fell in love with.  
By December 23rd Scorpius realised he never wanted to leave the Potter’s home. He found it to be fun, caring and homely the exact opposite of his own home. But he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t curious about the famous Burrows Christmases. He wasn’t exactly sure how Christmas with 28 people was even going to work. But as soon as they arrived at 9am he found out exactly how it would work. Messily. He’d barely stepped out of the fireplace they’d flooed into when he ran into one of the few Weasley’s he’d recognised. His Quidditch captain Dominique.  
“Watch it! … Oh it’s you. Dad said you were coming.” Dominique studied Scorpius as if trying to read his intentions of being here. Eventually she remembered her original task and ran off to find Roxanne. The next few hours were so loud and confusing Scorpius barely remembered all the names and face he’d been introduced to. He remembered Grandma Molly and Grandpa Arthur who were stood just by the fireplace giving everyone a hug and when they were introduced to Scorpius he was no exception. Grandma Molly held his in her arms and gave him a squeeze as Grandpa Arthur patted his back.  
“You must be Albus’ friend Scorpius. It’s so nice to meet you and have you here for Christmas! You’ll have to excuse how loud and crazy it can get I’m afraid.” Molly smiled. Her smile was entirely infection and Scorpius found himself beaming too. For as loud and as crazy as it was he knew that at least it wasn’t as silent as Malfoy Manor.  
When Scorpius had turned around after talking to Grandma Molly and Grandpa Arthur about his previous Christmases he found the entire Potter clan except Albus had disappeared.   
“Come on let me introduce you to everyone!” Albus chuckled, though Scorpius already knew this would take most of the day.   
Albus and him first made there way into the living room where the James, Fred and Louis were gathered around the coffee table with blueprints on the table.   
“I believe you’ve already met the Junior Marauders as they like to call themselves.” Albus nodded towards James, Fred and Louis.   
“Why do they call themselves that?” Scorpius asked.  
“My mum once told us about our grandfather and his friends who used to pull epic pranks, messing about and get into trouble and they called themselves the marauders. James’ was names after two of them and pulling pranks and getting into trouble are like his, Fred and Lou’s favourite things so they called themselves the junior Marauders to uphold there legacy.” Albus explained. “Basically. Stay away from them or you WILL be on the receiving end of a prank!” Scorpius made a mental note of that. Albus nodded to the sofa where a stunningly beautiful woman with long flowing blonde hair and icy blue eyes wearing a flowing blue dress and warm winter leggings sat next to a woman who looked to be her total opposite. The other woman was smaller and had a brown bob of hair and grey eyes she was wearing a stained lilac button down shirt with a pair of worn out jeans and scuffed heals. Both women were sat laughing over a cup of coffee.  
“That blonde lady is my aunt Fleur and the brown haired one’s my aunt Audrey. Aunt Fleur is Victoire, Louis and Dom’s mum and Uncle Bill’s wife. Aunt Audrey is Molly and Lucy’s mum and Uncle Percy’s wife.” Scorpius tried to take this information in but given he hadn’t met half the people Albus had just described he figured he’d probably forget it in two minutes.   
“Aunt Fleur and Aunt Audrey are pretty harmless just stay out of there way when there helping Grandma make Christmas dinner!”   
“Hey Al!”   
“Merry Christmas!” Came two identical voices from just behind Albus and Scorpius. They turned around to see two girls who looked eerily identical, the only way Scorpius could see to tell them apart was one girl had orange hair and one had brown. Other than that they both had the same crystal blue eyes, the same cardigan which the orange haired girl had in yellow and the brown haired girl had in blue, the same black skirts and the same grey tights with black buckled shoes. Even their hair was styled in the same half up, half down fashion tied up with ribbon.  
“Merry Christmas girls! Girls this is my friend Scorpius, he’s staying with us this Christmas. Scorp this is Molly,” Albus pointed to the brown haired girl “And Lucy. You may have seen Lucy around she’s in our year but she’s in Hufflepuff. Molly’s a year older though.” Scorpius extended his hand and both girls shook it.  
“Hi Scorpius.” The replied in unison.  
“There Aunt Audrey and Uncle Percy’s kids.” Albus explained. Scorpius remembered Audrey though he had yet to meet Percy.  
“Nice to meet you both!” Scorpius remembered his manners as the girls waved and Albus ushered him into the kitchen where Scorpius could see a lot of adults.  
“Right you already know mum and dad obviously, and there talking to Aunt Angie” Albus pointed out. Scorpius noticed Ginny having an intense discussion with a dark lady whose braided hair was tied up in a bun and who was wearing a thick jumper with her jeans and trainers.   
“Aunt Angelina and mum have both played professional quidditch, they get pretty intense about it so stay off that topic with them. Aunt Angie is Fred and Roxy’s mum and Uncle George’s wife.” Albus said turning his head to another orange haired, freckle faced man with a button down shirt sticking out from underneath a cream and orange striped jumper.   
“That’s Uncle George there. He runs the joke shop in Diagon Ally. You must have seen it!” Scorpius’ eyes widened.  
“You mean Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes?” Albus nodded “I’ve always wanted to go in there but my father would never let me!” Scorpius sighed. Albus gave a half-hearted reassuring smile as he patted Scorpius’ shoulder.  
“Hey maybe Uncle George will sell us some stuff from here and your father will never have to know!” Albus suggested. Scorpius’ eyes light up.  
“MUM! Where’s my broom?” Scorpius and Albus were interrupted and pushed out of the doorway by the Weasley Scorpius recognised from quidditch as Roxanne with Dominique trailing behind.  
“In your room where you left it!” Angelina replied barely taking her mind of her conversation with Ginny. Roxanne whose light brown curly hair was loose in it’s ringlets today promptly turned out of the room and pounded up the stairs with Dominique urging her to hurry so they could practice.  
“You remember Roxy from quidditch right?” Al sarcastically asked. Scorpius rolled his eyes in response. Albus and Scorpius had barely turned out of the kitchen when they saw another relative Scorpius didn’t know talking to Albus’ grandparents. This man had curly orange hair that had been gelled back and bright blue eyes under silver crescent glasses.  
“Uncle Percy.” Albus explained. “Married to Aunt Audrey. Father to Molly and Lucy. He’s harmless but he’ll talk your ear off about the ministry. Worked there since he left school. Bit boring really.” Albus summarised.   
“HUGO COME ON!” Scorpius and Albus got pushed against the wall before they knew it by Lily running to the front door to go the garden with a worried looking Hugo by the hand.  
“Lily I don’t know if we should…” was the last thing Scorpius heard before Lily slammed the door.   
“Lily and Hugo obviously you know them.” Albus guided Scorpius into the dinning room Scorpius barely had any time to take the room in when a flying Santa ornament flew over his head.   
“Sorry! Scorpius right? Nice to meet you!” a long orange haired man with a deep scar down one side of his face smiled as he picked up his Santa ornament and headed back to another long orange haired man but this one’s hair was in a ponytail that reached down his back and instead of one deep scar several scars were showing on his arms thanks to his short sleeved t-shirt.  
“That’s Uncle Bill he’s married to Aunt Fleur and his kids are Victoire, Dom and Lou” Albus quickly covered. Suddenly the longer haired man seemed to notice Albus and his face lit up as he crossed the dinning room to them.  
“AL! Hey buddy! God you’ve got so big!” He grabbed Albus into a bear hug.  
“Uncle Charlie!” Albus grinned resting his head on his uncle’s chest. When they parted his uncle’s eyes landed on Scorpius.  
“Uncle Charlie, this is my friend Scorpius, Scorp this is Uncle Charlie! He works with dragons and lives in Romania, I didn’t know you were coming home this Christmas Uncle Charlie!” Albus exclaimed giving his uncle another hug.  
“Thought I’d come and surprise everyone, it has been 5 years after all!” Charlie ruffled his nephews hair. Scorpius smiled at the exchange.  
“Charlie, come help us get this Santa on the tree!” Bill had the flying Santa on the table trying to get it to stay still long enough to get it onto the Christmas tree in the corner. Charlie rushed over to his brother which left Albus free to resume the tour.   
“Let’s go find Rose you know her!” Albus joked at Scorpius’ overwhelmed expression he patted him on the back and directed him back to the corridor where three more people had appeared. One of them Scorpius recognised immediately as Rose and he assumed the two adults just behind her must have been her parents. Her father had orange hair, blue eyes and freckles. It was easy for Scorpius to see where she’s got most of her looks but her mother’s posture and pencil skirt made it clear to Scorpius where Rose had got her mind from.  
“There’s Rose and her parents Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron.” Albus made his way through his Grandma Molly, Grandpa Arthur and Uncle Percy to meet them in the living room doorframe.  
“Rose!” Rose turned to see Scorpius and her smile widened.  
“There you are!” Albus gave his cousin a quick hug and moved into the living room to great his aunt and uncle. Scorpius stayed in the doorframe with Rose.  
“So how’s your first Weasley Christmas treating you?” Rose asked.   
“Honestly it’s a bit overwhelming but really lovely!” Scorpius admitted.  
“That sums it up really!” Rose laughed. Suddenly Scorpius heard a screech behind him.  
“Ooooh Rose is under the mistletoe!” A heart-stoppingly beautiful girl bounced on the spot making her white tights slip slightly. The first thing Scorpius noticed about this beautiful girl was that she was smiling so wide yet she had no smile lines, it was like her skin was made of pure perfection. Her silky blonde shimmering hair was curled loosely around her chest and her pink jumper dress was hugging tightly to every curve. Scorpius was so enthralled at staring at the beautiful girl he hadn’t noticed the mistletoe hanging above him and Rose that this girl was so excited about until suddenly he felt Rose’s soft lips against his cheeks. His attention snapped off the pretty girl as quickly as it had began and his cheeks burned red as he heard Albus wolf whistling.  
“Happy now Victoire?” Rose rolled her eyes but couldn’t resist smiling a bit as Victoire Awwed them. Rose and Scorpius’ eyes finally met and they smiled slightly behind there red faces.   
“So you’re the Malfoy kid invading my home.” A harsh voice broke the two apart as Scorpius looked up at Ron’s face.  
“Hello Sir, I’m Scorpius. Thank you for letting me stay here this Christmas.” Scorpius nervously smiled and held out his hand. Ron stared at the hand and then at Scorpius face making no attempt to return the gesture.  
“Don’t thank me. If it were up to me we wouldn’t have any Malfoy’s in my house. You may have fooled them but I still remember what you family did.” Ron scowled. Scorpius stared at him gobsmacked, unable to even close his mouth is violent shock.  
“Daddy!” Rose snapped.  
“Woah!” Albus protested  
“Ronald!” Hermione growled all at the same time.  
“Sir I’m not like my family….” Scorpius began to explain still in shock.  
“No. Scorp you don’t have to explain yourself. Look Uncle Ron, Grandma said he could stay so he’s staying. So be nice or don’t say anything at all.” Albus stood next to his friend in solidarity. Ron rolled his eyes in frustration.  
“Stay away from my little girl. You may be a Malfoy but you don’t have to bring her down with you.” Ron snapped as he walked away.  
“Dad! Don’t say that…” Rose began arguing as she followed him.   
“I’m sorry for him honey, he has some backwards beliefs sometimes!” Hermione shook her head in disagreement before following her husband. Albus took Scorpius by the shoulders and took him up to his and Hugo’s room where he would be sleeping. 

 

Despite hearing loud conversations underneath them all day, Albus and Scorpius decided to remain in the most peaceful place in The Burrows for the majority of the day, Albus and Hugo’s bedroom. Albus & Hugo’s bedroom was barely big enough for another camp bed but Molly Weasley had fit one in there opposite the bunk beds somehow. Hugo hadn’t been given a break from adventuring with Lily so Albus and Scorpius had the room to themselves for the day. Which is why it came as such a shock to Scorpius’ system when he heard the loudest bellow he thought he’d ever heard come from Molly Weasley ascending up to the 3rd floor that Albus and Scorpius’ room was on and Scorpius was forced to leave the comfort of the bedroom for the madness of the dinner table. Albus, who was very used to the madness of teatime directed Scorpius to a chair next to him. Before Scorpius knew it everyone had settled quicker than he thought possible for a family of 27, but then again Scorpius remembered they must be used to this by now.   
“Wait. Who are you?” The voice made Scorpius’ head snap up just as he was about to take a bite of his mashed potatoes. He quickly registered the young man sitting next to him in a plaid shirt with a weird-sister T-shirt underneath and skinny jeans on. But by far what most caught Scorpius’ eye was the young mans bright turquoise blue hair with orange tips, The colour was so bright and shocking that it stood out on the young man almost as much as his eyes which Scorpius could swear were violet.  
“Oh…uh… I’m Scorpius. I’m Albus’ friend. Mrs Weasley said it was okay for me to stay here this Christmas.” Scorpius extended his hand which the young man happily shook. Scorpius couldn’t resist from staring at his hair. “I love your hair!” Scorpius complimented.  
“Thank you! I’m Teddy. What colour even is it now?” Teddy chuckled running his hand through his short quiffed hair.  
“You don’t know what colour your hair is?” Scorpius stared at it confused and before his eyes it turned the exact same shade of blonde as Scorpius’   
“Wow! You’re a metamorphmagus!” Scorpius’ mouth hung open as Teddy’s changed his hair back to turquoise and orange.   
“Yeah I forget sometimes that I’ve ever changed the colour!” Teddy laughed at Scorpius’ gormless expression.   
“That’s so cool!” Scorpius admired  
“Yeah, I never look out of place at the weird sisters concerts!” Teddy shrugged.  
“I love the weird sisters!” Scorpius exclaimed.  
“Awesome! Nice to meet a fellow fan! Not a lot of these Weasley-Potter’s are…. Except Ginny of course!” Scorpius’ eyebrows knitted together in confusion.  
“Wait… aren’t you a Weasley-Potter?”   
“Oh no! Not by blood I mean. I’m a Lupin. Teddy Lupin. Me and Gran get invited here cause Harry’s my godfather.” Teddy explained nodding towards an elderly woman with grey hair and pursed lips who was glaring at him from across the table. Scorpius smiled at her and extended his hand over the table.  
“Hello, I’m Scorpi….”  
“I know who you are.” The woman cut off. Her sharp bitter tone had silenced the entire dinner table to staring at them both.  
“Oh Drom. I’m so sorry! I forgot to tell you he was coming… I was going to explain…” Grandma Molly’s cheeks had gone red as she frantically tried to explain herself. The woman was paying no attention to her though and her eyes remained fixed on Scorpius.  
“You’re her grandson aren’t you. Scorpius Malfoy.” Teddy was looking back and forth between his gran and Scorpius in confusion.  
“Excuse me, have we met?” Scorpius’ cheeks were starting to burn red as he noticed all 27 eyes on him.  
“No we haven’t. Figures she wouldn’t even tell you I exist. I bet your father has no idea about me either.”   
“Aunt Andromeda! He’s not like his father, or his grandmother. He’s like you. He’s here because his father’s been ignoring him and he doesn’t feel comfortable at Malfoy Manor. He’s just like you Aunt Drom. He doesn’t fit in there either.” Albus desperately tried to explain.  
“He’s right Aunt Drom. You’d like him. He was cast out by them too!” Rose defended Scorpius despite her father’s harsh gaze.  
“Is that true? Do you not fit in at their home either?” the old woman’s expression softened. Scorpius nodded.  
“My father doesn’t like that I’m a Gryffindor or that I’m friends with muggleborns. It never felt right being in that house.” Scorpius shyly muttered.  
“It never felt right there to me either.” The woman looked pleasant and nice now with her softened expression. She reached her hand out and clasped Scorpius’ in her own.  
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude but… Who are you?” Scorpius asked the strange woman who seemed to know so much about his family.  
“Andromeda Tonks. But before I was married I was known as Andromeda Black. You grandmother Narcissa was my sister. I’m your great aunt.” The woman explained. Scorpius’ mouth fell open.  
“But…I didn’t even know my grandmother had a sister other than…” Scorpius knew better than to speak the name of his mother’s wicked sister. A death eater to the end she had been.   
“There were three of us. But she was most ashamed of me. I married a muggle-born and was disowned. I doubt she even remembers me.” Andromeda remembered. Teddy’s eyes widened slightly.  
“Wait, so Scorpius is my second cousin?” Teddy asked. Andromeda nodded in response Teddy smiled happily.  
“They disowned you just like that?” Scorpius’ eyes flashed with fear.  
“Our family have always been blood purists, I was deemed a traitor to there beliefs, Beliefs that they hold higher than family…. Why haven’t you been disowned then if you don’t share there beliefs?” Andromeda asked.  
“My grandparents don’t know yet. My father makes me dress in a slytherin tie and act good for them.” Scorpius admitted feeling very embarrassed to admit it to a brave woman who had stood up to her family for love.  
“Never let them do that. Never let them hide who you truly are and what you truly belief to fit there mold for you.” Andromeda advised. Scorpius was thankful everyone’s conversations had resumed now so no one else had to hear him admit to his great aunt who had been disowned for standing up for what was right that he couldn’t do the same thing.

 

Christmas eve was a blur of loud conversations and trying desperately to remember names and faces for Scorpius. Thankfully whenever Scorpius seemed to look lost either Albus, Rose, Harry, Ginny or his new cousin Teddy would come to talk to him to make him feel more welcome. Scorpius didn’t think it could get more mad at this house, but come Christmas morning he found he was sorely mistaken. With everyone rushing to either put the food in or open presents and 27 people around him trying to show off their presents to one another and thank each other, Scorpius found the noise level had risen several decibels. Scorpius was content however to sit and watch everyone else open there presents while he drank his hot cocoa Grandma Molly had given him. That was until Harry and Ginny had handed him a purple and gold wrapped present.  
“You got me a present?” Scorpius looked up in confusion, placing his hot cocoa on the side for later.  
“It’s nothing, we weren’t sure if you’d get anything and we wanted to make sure you had something to open on Christmas!” Ginny explained. Scorpius’ eyes welled up at there kindness. “Go on open it.”  
Scorpius all but shredded the wrapping paper to find a leather bound book entitled ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ Scorpius studied the boo in confusion.  
“You mentioned how you loved to read and how interested in muggle culture you were… and that you weren’t allowed to look into it. It’s a muggle story book.” Harry explained. Tears started to fall from Scorpius’ eyes and he couldn’t even voice his appreciation so he simply pulled them both into a big hug and hoped they knew what he was struggling to say. Scorpius then excused himself to the bathroom to clean himself up. When he emerged he found Albus in the corridor with a thin rectangular present.   
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you! Merry Christmas!” He handed Scorpius the present. Scorpius tore open the paper to find a shiny covered comic book with the words ‘Superman’ written in bold red letters on the front. Scorpius thanked Albus and laughed as he handed him his present for him…. A Batman comic he’d got from the store near the Potters home. After breaking apart from there hug Scorpius looked Albus in the eyes and said  
“Thank you for giving me a home from Christmas.” Albus smiled at this.  
“Don’t mention it. Happy to help my best friend.” Scorpius resisted the urge he felt to well up again. Albus then returned to the Christmas tree in the living room to open the rest of his presents and Scorpius returned to his armchair to finish his hot cocoa, when he was interrupted again this time by Rose who sat down on the sofa next to him.   
“Here” Rose simply stated handing over a perfectly neatly wrapped present with a bow wrapped around it. Scorpius was a little taken aback he and Rose had never exchanged presents before and he couldn’t help but feel her father glare from over her shoulder.  
“um… thank you.” He said unravelling the bow and trying his best not to tear the paper. Inside he found a picture place in a frame of him, Albus, Sienna, Rose & Thalia they had taken last year. Sienna was rolling her eyes at Thalia who was standing on tiptoes to fit into the frame and Albus was giggling at Rose’s attempts to look smart and regal as Scorpius took the picture of the 5 of them with Rose’s camera. He remembered taking this photo but he had no idea Rose had kept it.  
“I figured you might need something to remind you who your family are…. Us.” She smiled. Scorpius felt so overcome with emotion that despite her entire family being fully able to watch and her father looking like he wanted to behead Scorpius just for talking to his daughter he leant over and hugged her.  
“Thank you. This means a lot to me thank you! Scorpius reiterated his gratitude. Scorpius felt so overcome with happiness he didn’t think anything else could make him feel more emotional but he found himself mistaken when after the most mouth-wateringly beautiful Christmas dinner he’d ever experienced Grandma Molly announced it was time for everyone to open there presents off her and line up for the family pictures. Scorpius settled himself onto the sofa as he watched everyone open up jumpers with their initials on in various colours. He was so enthralled with watching this he didn’t even noticed grandma Molly come to sit next to him.  
“Here you go sweetheart.” She said handing him a present. He looked up at her warm, loving, smiling face to make sure she knew she was talking to him. He unwrapped his present trying not to let his mind jump to conclusions but he found it was exactly what he’d expected, a dark green hand knitted jumper with a lime green “S” in the middle.   
“You made this for me?” Scorpius reiterated suddenly becoming very afraid to hold it.  
“Of course my dear, when I heard you were coming for Christmas I needed to make sure I had something for you!” For the second time today Scorpius’ eyes filled with tears.  
“Come on try it on then!” Grandma Molly urged. Scorpius pulled the perfectly fitting jumper over his grey t-shirt and found it to be comfortingly cozy.  
“Thank you Mrs Weasley!” He chocked out.   
“Oh my dear!” Mrs Weasley noticed his tears and pulled him into a comforting hug. “Come on now dear, you’ll have red eyes for the family photos!” She joked.  
“Oh no I couldn’t possibly, it’s just for family!” Scorpius insisted. Molly fiercely shook her head.  
“And you my dear are Albus’ family, you take care of him and Rose at school, so you belong in this photo as much as any of us do.” Scorpius pushed a lump out of his throat as grandma Molly got up and started arranging him and the rest of the 27 Weasley-Potter-Lupin-Tonks’ to fit into her photo. As Scorpius knelt between Albus and Rose smiling he couldn’t help but look around at the room filled with 27 strangers that barely knew him but had almost all adopted him into their family because he had nowhere else to go and think of their kindness and generosity and how proud he would feel if he were a member of their family and wondering if maybe one day he really could be.


	23. Part 3 Chapter 6

When Scorpius, Rose & Albus arrived back at Hogwarts after Christmas, Scorpius began experiencing an odd sensation he’d never felt before, he didn’t want Christmas to end. Scorpius knew without a doubt in his heart that this had been his favourite Christmas ever, even with Rose’s father’s snide remarks towards him. When he had arrived at the closest place that had ever felt like home to him, Hogwarts castle, he found himself sorely wanting to return to the chaos of the burrows. Scorpius had spent the rest of Christmas getting to know the other members of Albus’ family, especially Teddy and Andromeda, two members of his own family he’d never even met before. Scorpius couldn’t really describe to Rose & Albus the relief he had felt when he discovered there were members of his family like him who had chosen a different path. For all this life Scorpius felt so alone and different and meeting Teddy and Andromeda showed him he wasn’t. He had such a wonderful Christmas he’d almost forgotten entirely about the day Teddy took him and Albus to Flourish and Blotts to research, however he was quickly reminded of this when within an hour of arriving back Rose was planning to meet up with Thalia and Sienna the next day.   
Scorpius couldn’t fail to notice Albus’ smile widen as Sienna walked in or Thalia’s when she caught sight of Albus for that matter. Scorpius couldn’t pretend he wasn’t worried for the groups future if this continued. Anybody could see Thalia had feelings for Albus, and you’d have had to be blind not to see Albus’ growing feelings for Sienna. The only one Scorpius couldn’t figure out was Sienna. She kept her emotions so closely guarded he could never tell how she felt as easily as he could read Albus and Thalia. One moment she was kissing his cheek in the infirmary and the next she had slapped him, it was enough to confuse anybody. Scorpius had found himself wondering on several occasions how they would continue to work together as a group if Sienna did have feelings for Albus too. He wondered how hard it must be for Thalia to have to work with someone she had feelings for who had feelings for someone else. Scorpius found himself glad he had never got involved in messy feelings for multiple people. Scorpius’ thoughts were interrupted however by the arrival of Rose who promptly took he seat at what had by now become their usual table.  
“Right. Welcome back everyone, I hope you two had a great Christmas. Now down to business, how did everyone get on with research?” Rose asked. Scorpius looked around trying to avoid eye contact with Rose and noticed the rest of the gang were doing the same. Sienna rolled her eyes at there nervousness and threw her bag on the table and took out the silver mirror which she slid across the table to Rose.  
“I did every spell I could think of, dark detection spells, tracing spells, even a magic detection spell and I couldn’t find a thing. It’s like it’s a normal mirror again… except for the blood stains of course.” Sienna shrugged. Rose sighed as she took back the mirror.  
“Okay so we’ve come with a dead end in the mirror department…. Thalia? Did you have anymore luck with the journal?” Rose tried to stay positive. Thalia bit her lip as she produced the journal from her satchel.  
“….Not exactly. I got two more words…. I’m sorry I was trying all Christmas but this thing is hard! A lot of the writing faded so it’s hard enough to see without it being in code!” Thalia glared at the journal.  
“It’s alright Tha, You’ll get there. We can start working on it together again!” Albus suggested. Scorpius couldn’t help but noticed Thalia blush and Sienna scowl slightly as he said this and wondered if Albus was aware of what he was doing to Thalia.  
“Yeah you two need to be on journal duty.” Rose agreed “In the meantime though how did you boys get on looking up the staff and Morana?” Rose turned to Albus and Scorpius who looked at each other then down at the table refusing to meet Rose’s eyes.  
“Well…We didn’t exactly….” Scorpius began nervously.  
“We couldn’t find anything!” Albus blurted out. Rose sighed deeply.  
“Seriously? You couldn’t find ANYTHING about the name Morana or a staff? Did either of you even look!?” Rose accused them.   
“We did! Teddy took us the Flourish and Blotts before school started back up again!” Scorpius insisted.  
“It’s not like there’s an entire section on women made of mist who may be called Morana and use creepy objects to get power!” Albus defended them. “Anyway what did you find then?”   
“Well….” Rose began biting her lip.  
“You didn’t find anything either!” Albus pointed at her accusingly.  
“No okay! Your right it’s not like there’s a library section for this stuff!” Rose sighed in defeat.  
“So we’re no closer to figuring this stuff out then we were before Christmas?” Sienna rolled her eyes leaning back on her chair.  
“I guess we’ll have to continue our research here then.” Rose suggested earning a frustrated sigh from the rest of the group.

 

The gang struggled to get anymore work done over the coming weeks as they all became too distracted by the excitement of their first visit to Hogsmeade. The quintet were struggling to keep there focus on the mist woman when the topic of Hogsmeade was much more exciting.   
“I guess we can all have a look through Tomes & Scrolls to see if we can find anything else, it’ll be good to have fresh books to look through” Scorpius suggested. Sienna frowned.  
“I’m gunna have to pass on that blondie, as exciting as book shopping sounds, I’d be crucified if Jasper’s lot caught me with you goody goody Gryffindors!” Sienna didn’t sound the least bit sad to have to miss book shopping, but the news made Albus frown.  
“Maybe they’d be okay…” Albus began.   
“You don’t know Jasper’s lot, all the slytherins are like Jasper and his little girlfriend Hydra and if I cross them I’ll have nobody in my own house, I’d never live it down!” Sienna sighed.  
Thalia couldn’t help but notice that for the first time for just a split second she’d let her guard down and showed she was disappointed by the ever so slight falter in her reluctant smile. Thalia couldn’t help but wonder how hard it must be to have to keep up a persona for so long just to keep other people happy. She felt a twinge of guilt as she realised she’d never felt that pressure before. Thalia surrounded herself by people who loved and accepted her for every part of her and for every choice she made, Sienna had never been given that luxury. She’d been trained from birth to be the person other people wanted so she wouldn’t end up alone and years of conditioning had left her unable to change that need to fit in. Thalia began to think of the way Sienna resembled a chameleon, changing herself so much to adapt to her environment for self-preservation that nobody knew who she really was. Thalia was snapped out of her thoughts by Rose’s piercing voice.  
“That’s okay Sienna we understand, we’ll go check it out and we’ll have a meeting after Hogsmeade next week to look at what we found.” Rose suggested.   
“Sounds good, is that all we need to discuss? Because I am REALLY behind on professor Longbottom’s herbology homework and I need to start getting through it!” Scorpius admitted. Rose sighed in response.  
“Come on, let’s get back to the dorm and I’ll help you get through it. You know you really should have got through this weeks ago!” Rose said sternly.   
“Since your going to be helping Scorpius with herbology…” Albus sheepishly began. Rose rolled her eyes.  
“What do you need help with?”  
“I haven’t really done the transfiguration homework yet...” Albus stalled.  
“The one that’s due tomorrow?! Honestly Albus!” Rose lectured as her and the boys began to leave. Rose stopped to turn towards Thalia.  
“Tha? You coming? Anything I can help you with?” Rose asked patiently. Thalia looked between Rose and Sienna who was sweeping her blonde curls out of her eyes as she packed her satchel.  
“No, I’m all caught up thanks though, I’m going to stick around for a bit though, you guys go on.” Thalia smiled as Rose shrugged and followed the boys. Thalia turned her attention to Sienna.  
“Sienna? Can we talk?” Thalia asked nervously. Sienna raised an eyebrow but took a seat again.  
“If this is about Albus again…” Sienna began  
“No, no I’d rather not even think about that! Actually it’s about you. I was just wondering why you don’t ever want to hang around with us in public?” Thalia asked. Sienna chortled in response.  
“Have you ever met Jasper and his cronies? They’d make my life in the common room hell if they knew I didn’t mind Gryffindor’s, yet alone if they knew I was hanging around with them! And that’s just Jasper, I can’t even begin to imagine the twisted things Hydra would make the other slytherin girls so to me! Trust me it’s just a lot safer for all of us if we hide us all hanging out!” Sienna grabbed her satchel and started to raise from her chair when Thalia grabbed her arm.  
“Wait! Look I know Jasper’s not nice people but… surely not everyone in there is like that? I mean you’re a Slytherin and your nice, surely there must be other Slytherin’s like you? ones you could stick with in the common room?” Thalia suggested. Sienna gave a sad smile.  
“Truth be told, I barely even know anyone in my house except Jasper’s lot. If Jasper tells us not to talk to someone we don’t speak to them. We do what Jasper says and in return… he protects us.” Sienna admitted. Thalia’s eyes widened.  
“That’s not who I thought you were.” Thalia admitted. Her words hit Sienna with an impact neither of them were expecting. The room was silent for what felt like days before Sienna could finally speak again.  
“You don’t even know me, so don’t act like you do just because we have a similar taste in boys! You know nothing about who I am!” Sienna’s eyes looked positively dangerous at that moment. Thalia knew the safer option would be to apologise and walk away but she also knew she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t try.  
“Maybe I don’t know everything but from what I do know I thought you were stronger that that. I thought you were strong enough to think for yourself and stand on your own two feet and not let Jasper make all your decisions for you. You shouldn’t let him control you like that! We’re your friends not him!” Thalia pleaded. Sienna took a deep shaky breath to calm herself before replying.  
“You goody goody Gryffindors think everything’s about being brave! Well it’s NOT! Some us don’t want to be brave, some of us just want to survive! And Jasper helps us do that!” Sienna snarled trying to break her arm free of Thalia’s grasp.  
“Sienna, people who tell you who you can and cannot talk to are not your friends. People who control your actions aren’t your friends. If you cannot be yourself around Jasper, he’s not your friend. Look carry on playing Jasper’s little puppet if you want but if you ever decide you want real friends who will be there to support you for everything that you are and everything you want to be, then you know where to find us. We’re always here Sienna. You just need to figure out where you want to be.” Thalia released Sienna’s arm and quickly left through the library door before she could even reply. Sienna stared at the library door Thalia had walked out of in shock.

 

The next morning Thalia couldn’t help but feel guilty about her talk with Sienna. She knew in her heart that she meant what she’d said to her but part of her felt guilty about the way she’d said it. Thalia could barely sleep that night thinking about how Sienna would react to there conversation. She knew deep down that she was right but she also knew that this friendship they all had was so important to Sienna and pushing her like that could have jeopardised it for Sienna. So when Sienna walked through the doors with Jasper and his gang the next morning for breakfast Thalia felt a terrible twinge as they all came towards them.  
“Well well, Look it’s the Slytherin reject, the let down son, the ugly know it all and the freak together as usual! Well I suppose beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to friends” Jaspers nasty remarks were followed by a cruel screeching laugh from Hydra Dean who was clingy possessively to her boyfriends arm. Thalia couldn’t help but notice however Sienna had her arms crossed across her chest and her eyes had fallen to the floor pretending not to have heard.  
“God, no wonder all your parents rejected you. If my children turned out to be freaks like you lot I’d leave too! Speaking of which, how is your mummy Scorpius? My dad heard from the ministry that your mother hasn’t turned up to any meetings for weeks now. Everyone’s thinking she’s done a runner! I bet she has hasn’t she! I don’t blame her, I’d rather live on the other side of the world than have a traitor son!” Jasper smirked as Hydra and the rest of his crew laughed as though this was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Scorpius’ face was solid trying his hardest not to show any emotion. Rose’s face was flushing red with anger and Albus looked like he was about to climb over the table and smack Jasper’s face.  
“Jasper, I swear if you don’t shut up….” Albus threatened. Jasper rolled his eyes.  
“Oh and what are you going to do? I’d be far more threatened if it were your brother or your famous father threatening me! Even your sister is more intimidating than you! You don’t have anything in you! You’re just weak. Tell me Potter, how disappointed was your father when you came? No one would even be able to recognise you in your own family you’re than unimportant! What a shame the famous Harry Potter got a son like you.” Albus fell back into his seat in shock trying desperately not to show how much those words effected him but much like Scorpius Thalia knew neither were doing a very good job at it.   
“Lay off.” A quite voice came from behind Jasper. His crew split apart to reveal the blonde haired girl that had made the comment. Thalia’s caught her breath when she saw Sienna’s eyes daring to meet Jasper’s.  
“What did you just say?” Jasper said slowly and dangerously. By now half the hall had turned to watch the showdown. Jasper had given her an out, a way to take back what she’d said. But Thalia saw a defiance in her hazel eyes that would make grown men weep, she saw Sienna’s posture straighten to bring herself to Jasper’s full height, her hands clench into fists by her side daring Jasper to fight back.   
“I said. Lay off.” Sienna’s icy voice firmly stated louder this time. Jaspers glare deepened.  
“What do you think your doing Sienna?” Jasper’s controlled voice getting even tighter. Thalia noticed that Albus’ mouth was hanging open at the exchange and Rose’s hands were covering her mouth in shock and Scorpius’ eyes looked like they were about to bulge from his head.  
“Making a choice. I’m telling you right now Jasper. Lay off them or you’ll have me to deal with.” Sienna warned. Jasper’s eyes darted to the rest of the hall that was staring at him.  
“What? So you think you’re a goody goody Gryffindor now? In case you forgot Sienna, you’re one of us. The sorting hat looked deep into your mind and saw that we were the same and you…” He pointed at the Gryffindor table in general then back at Sienna. “Are different. It’s not use pretending to be somebody you’re not Sienna. Your one of us, not them.” Sienna laughed cruelly at this making Jasper jump slightly.  
“That is where you are so wrong. No one’s like anyone. We are all different. And thank Merlin I’m different from you lot because being like you guys, well that would be worst person I could be. You are right in a way though. I’m not a Gryffindor, I’m ambitious and vain, I can be self-centred and sneaky, I’m a slytherin. But just because I’m a Slytherin, doesn’t mean I have to be like you. It’s people like you that give us a bad name. So no I’m not a Gryffindor, but I prefer hanging out with them then jerks like you.” Sienna smiled towards the group. Albus caught her eye and for a brief moment Thalia noticed his silent admiration towards her. Jasper tried his best to regain his composure but Thalia thought his face still resembled a sour lemon.  
“Fine. You want to choose to be a freak and a disappointment like them? Go ahead. But I’m warning you Sienna, you will regret this!” Jasper inched his face a millimetre from her but Sienna’s eyes only narrowed. She refused to show intimidation or fear as he glared at her.   
“No I don’t think I am. I’ve got friends, I’ve got them, and I’d much rather them over you lot any day.” Sienna smiled. Jasper rolled his eyes and led the rest of his gang over to the Slytherin table as Sienna bravely took a seat next to Thalia at the Gryffindor table. The gang stared at her in amazement and pride.   
“Sienna you just…” Rose began but found herself speechless for the first time in her life.  
“That was AWESOME!” Scorpius beamed patting her on the back. She smiled at his confidently.  
“I know. That git had it coming! No one tells me who I can and cannot be friends with!” Sienna smirked.   
“You are truly amazing. Every time I think I have you worked out, you go and surprise me.” Albus couldn’t take his eyes away from her Thalia noticed much to her disappointment.   
“Oh please Albus, you’ll never work me out!” Sienna laughed.  
“Sienna… what you just did…. you can’t undo that. That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen but… the rest of the Slytherins are going to make your life hell now!” Thalia sympathetically said.  
“Yeah well let them try. You were right Thalia. I’m Sienna Vane, I am the boss not anybody’s servant!” Sienna smiled boldly at her. He smile wavered though as she saw Thalia’s face drop.  
“I don’t want to be the reason the Slytherins give you hell though.” Thalia admitted much to the confusion of Albus Rose and Scorpius. Sienna smiled though.  
“Thalia. You’re the reason I got away from those complete and utter vile people! You reminded me who my friends were. You reminded me that you are my friend not them! You’re not at fault, I owe you!” Sienna surprised everyone yet again by giving Thalia a bone crushing hug which Thalia reciprocated “Thank you” Sienna whispered as they hugged. Thalia smiled as the broke apart.  
“Don’t thank me, I’m just glad you don’t have to hide behind those gits anymore!” The gang chuckled as the continued their breakfast talking nonstop about what Sienna was going to do now with the slytherins. 

 

The gang could barely hold in there excitement as they entered Hogsmeade for Sienna and Thalia this was there first time experiencing the village, however Rose, Scorpius & Albus had been here many times throughout there childhood. But the experience of going alone without adult supervision was thrilling to them. Rose was keen to head straight through the crisp snow to Tomes and Scrolls but the rest of the gang had managed to convince her to go to get a drink at the three broomsticks first. As they all took a seat in a quiet booth in the corner Scorpius’ eyes glanced around as he took his coat off until he noticed a familiar head of blue hair coming toward them.  
“Teddy!” Scorpius exclaimed. Teddy beamed as he made his way to the gangs table. As he approached he noticed Teddy wearing a three broomstick uniform and carrying a waiters notepad.  
“Hey dudes! What are you guys doing here?” He asked excitedly as he flipped his book preparing to take there order.  
“Our first Hogsmeade weekend!” Albus smiled. Teddy shook his head in disbelief.  
“Wow! I can’t believe you’re all old enough to be going on Hogsmeade trips! What are you all now 13?” Teddy asked.  
“Well there 13…” Albus said pointing to Rose, Scorpius and Thalia. “…we just turned 14” he pointed between himself and Sienna who were sitting close.  
“God! Seems like just yesterday you and me were playing catch with the bludgers in the garden Rosie!” Teddy reminisced. Scorpius couldn’t help but notice Rose’s face turn red.   
“How’s Andromeda?” Scorpius asked keenly. Teddy smiled slightly.  
“Grandma’s okay, she’s getting old though, forgot the levitation charm the other day bless her!” Teddy frowned. “She’ll be really excited to hear from you though! She’s missed you since you left after Christmas.” Teddy confessed. Scorpius couldn’t hide a smile.  
“I’ve missed her too, Your grandmothers so lovely and caring.” Scorpius remembered fondly the few days he’d been able to spend with the closest thing he’d felt to a loving family in years.  
“Hey! You remember what she said! Call her Aunt Drom! She’s your aunt too cuz!” Teddy grinned his hair turning from blue to orange as he did.  
“Oh my god you’re hair!” Thalia jumped out of her skin as Sienna’s eyes bulged from her head. Rose stifled a grin at there reactions to this.  
“Guys it’s cool, he’s a metamorphmagus, he can change his appearance at will. This is Teddy he’s…well he’s sort of an honorary cousin of ours since Albus’ dad is Teddy’s godfather. He and Al were practically raised together.” Rose introduced Teddy who smiled at the two girls who had yet to stop staring at his hair.  
“And he’s actually my cousin….well second cousin anyway” Scorpius beamed.  
“Teddy these are our friends from school, Thalia and Sienna” Albus pointed to each girl individually as Teddy put out his hand to shake both girls hands.  
“Nice to meet you both Thalia and Sienna! … oh god the boss is onto me!” The gang followed Teddy’s eyeliner to see an old woman glaring at his from behind the bar.  
“I’d better take your drinks, I’ll try come back to chat after.” Teddy frowned before putting on a huge fake customer service smile. “So are you guys ready to order?” He asked in his most polite voice.  
“Yes we are, 5 butterbeers please” Rose said in an equally formal voice. Teddy winked at them as he went to fetch there order.

 

The quartet had managed to convince Rose that they didn’t need to go to Tomes and Scrolls and that they should just enjoy the fun of Hogsmeade while they could. After a heated debate Rose finally gave it and let them do what they wanted, Albus took Sienna to see the shrieking shack while Scorpius and Thalia spent the rest of the day going between interesting shops. Rose however had decided that even if her friends weren’t going to join her she was going to try and research. Thalia couldn’t help but feel guilty that night thinking about how they had abandoned Rose to do the serious work while they went and had fun. Rose had brought a number of books back with her and whenever Thalia tried to speak to her to apologise she’d simply hold her finger out to shush her and she read. Thalia gave up eventually and slowly fell asleep. Her dreams came in terrifying flashes. A flash of an army, of a tomb, a sceptre, a tiara, the mirror, the mist woman. She heard glimpses of conversation too as the various scenes flashed before her.  
“You nearly ruined everything! I need them alive now!”  
“Use this to gather the muggles” Thalia saw a terrifying looking potion swirling red and black with black mist steaming from the top.  
“Find the muggleborns, the half-bloods, the blood-traitors. The ones who doubt. Bring them to me”  
Thalia had forgotten she was dreaming until suddenly she heard her name being shouted above it all, waking her with a scream. Rose was sat at the end of her bed he messy hair standing on end in her pale blue pyjamas looking concerned and pale. She glanced around the rest of the room and found the other girls just looked vaguely annoyed by her nightmare outburst.   
“Rose I saw her again…. In my dream. I saw her and I heard her! The mist woman!” Thalia frantically tried to explain. Rose bit her lip nervously.  
“Thalia…. You were doing it again. I thought you were going to start walking! You started reciting…. It.” Rose tried to speak in code but Thalia’s confused expression gave away her little knowledge. “The same prophecy you recited on the first day of the year… you recited it again.” Thalia felt her blood go cold. Her insides suddenly felt like lead. Rose quickly moved to comfort her seeing the worrying on her face she gave Thalia a half hug.  
“Don’t worry about it and try and get some real sleep tonight. We’ll have a library meeting first thing tomorrow morning. I found something in the books.”


	24. Part 3 Chapter 7

Thalia barely slept that night as she anxiously awaited to hear what Rose had found and discuss the weird dream with there rest of the group. It felt like she had been lying in bed starting at the top of her canopy for 5 minutes when Gwendolyn, Amelie and Rose started to wake up. Rose and Thalia were able to intercept Scorpius & Albus on their way to breakfast to let them know about the emergency meeting in the library before class, but they had to wait until breakfast when Sienna came to sit with them to tell her the plan. Despite it being against the rules for someone to sit anywhere other than their house table, Sienna had taken to sitting at the Gryffindor table to avoid hassle from the Slytherins. Surprisingly though none of the teachers had tried to stop her. Rose had stated her belief that the teachers wanted to encourage inter-house unity but had not been able to get anyone to do it before. Whatever the reason Sienna enjoyed being able to break the rules without getting in trouble. The first week after it had stated happening people whispered and stared constantly as Sienna was the highest topic of gossip but as the gossip began to change people forgot all about Sienna Vane’s rule breaking. When breakfast had finally ended and they had all settled into the library Thalia immediately rushed into recapping her dream, desperate to talk about it with someone.  
“She’s forming and army of muggles, muggle-borns and blood traitors?” Scorpius tried to wrap his head around.   
“She said ‘anyone who doubts’” Thalia recapped. Scorpius’ eyebrows knitted together in confusion.  
“She’s looking for people who doubt wizards. That’s what they all have in common. After the second wizarding war, many muggle-borns, half-bloods, blood traitors where killed because pure blooded wizards believed in the sanctity of their magic. The muggle-borns, half-bloods blood traitors they have every reason not to trust wizards anymore and for whatever reason she’s playing on that to recruit them.” Rose theorised. Everyone sat there in stunned silence for a moment before Albus dared to speak.  
“But what does she want with them?” Albus asked. Rose smiled slightly as she reached into her satchel.  
“That I may be able to answer.” Rose pulled out a heavy dusty book and placed it on the table and leant towards it, pointing to the cover which read ‘A history of Squibs & Muggleborns’ “I found this in tomes and scrolls. It’s no wonder we’ve never found anything about the mist woman we’ve been looking in all the wrong sections!” Rose explained flicking through the book until she came to the page she’d bookmarked and turned it to face her friends. On the page was a large picture of a woman from what the rest of them assumed to be about the 1600s. The painting did not move as the magical ones did, which gave them the idea that it was painted by a muggle. The woman’s black curls were loosely hanging around her heart shaped face and her frown looked serious and regal. The woman’s large blue ballgown gave away that this was painted a long time ago and the feathers in her hair gave the impression that she was wealthy. None of them would have recognised her except the distant-looking brown eyes were far too familiar to ever forget.   
“The mist woman.” Scorpius was barely able to make out. Rose nodded slightly pointing to a paragraph underneath the picture.  
“We haven’t been able to find her because everything that mentions her is in the history of muggle-borns section. According to this her name is Morana Angelus her father was a muggle viscount from Italy and her family emigrated to England in 1693, they were a very well-respected family even in England. But when Morana was a child she showed signs of magic, back then with the witch trials going on in America, exhibiting magic was terrifying, especially since her parents had none. She’s the first known case of a muggle-born witch. The magical historian in this book found no wizards or witches living close enough to the family at the time to be able to protect Morana but was able to find a written journal of a muggle that was close to them. When Morana first started displaying magic her parents were scared, they tried to punish her to get her to stop it. The muggle talks about hearing screams from the cellar of Morana being beaten by her father. The muggle man never really knew what Morana had done but saw very strange things from Morana. He began to suspect she was a witch, as did anyone close to the family. When Morana’s powers wouldn’t stop, he parents feared for their reputation and the safety of their daughter if anyone were to find out so they chained her up in the cellar for years, after so many years she must have nearly became an obscurus, trying to block out her magic to please her parents. But she stopped fearing her magic and started fearing her parents instead. The muggle man that wrote the journal found her years later and set her free, by this time she was 13 and she knew if she showed her face to her parents again she’d be locked up so she ran away. But a year later after learning to control her magic, she came back. The muggle man that saved her heard horrifying screams at the house he ran to help and found Morana stood over there dead bodies. He was so scared he ran home and barricaded his door. He feared she’d come for him so he wrote the final entry in his journal so others would understand how he died…. But he didn’t die. She must have erased his memory of her ever existing because he has another journal from a few days later that doesn’t show that he has any memory of her.” Rose recapped what she’d read to the rest of the captivated group.  
“Wow. I kind of feel sorry for…” Thalia frowned slightly.   
“I don’t!” Scorpius and Sienna said at the exact same time, the smiled briefly at each other and understanding passing between them.  
“Yeah she had awful parents, but so do lots of people.” Scorpius shrugged.  
“Just because she was mistreated doesn’t give her the right to murder the people who mistreated her.” Sienna insisted.  
“That’s true… but still I feel sorry for her having to grow up like that! I think we forget sometimes how lucky we are to grow up in this time. I mean yeah it’s kinda sucky sometimes, our muggle relations have a long way to go and a lot prejudices still exists but at least our parents aren’t torturing us!” Albus reminded them. Every stopped for a moment to consider this when finally Thalia spoke.  
“Wait a minute… you think she’s forming an army of muggles, muggle-borns, squibs and blood traitors… to end magic?” Thalia asked, Rose sighed  
“I didn’t know until you told me about your dream. It makes sense I guess that she’d form an army to get revenge on the magical community that got her tortured. She never wanted magic but she learnt to use it to so against rest of the community.”   
“That book is the first solid clue we’ve got in a long time but it’s not conclusive proof that that’s why she’s forming her army. I think we need to see what else we can find about her in muggle-born history books.” Scorpius suggested the rest of the gang reluctantly nodded and eventually they disbanded with the plan to continue search for anymore books about Morana.

 

After a month of searching Thalia’s birthday came and went without anyone noticing. It wasn’t until she made a passing comment about it one breakfast that the gang even realised they didn’t know her birthday. It was even more shocking when Scorpius shrugged and admitted his was in 2 days as well. That afternoon after Transfiguration Rose caught up with Albus and Sienna after making sure Thalia was heading to her divination class and Scorpius was on his way to muggle studies.   
“guys I was thinking. This morning when Thalia and Scorpius mentioned there birthdays I felt really guilty, Thalia’s been going through a tough time recently what with…. Homesickness” Rose lied glancing at Sienna who understood what she meant. Sienna felt a huge twist of guilt as she remembered that the reason Thalia was having such a tough time was because the boy she was crushing hard on …. liked Sienna more. Thalia was the first real friend Sienna had ever had, she’d only ever treated her kindly and she was such a good person, and how did she repay this kindness? By taking the boy she liked away. And yet despite her feelings for Albus, Thalia didn’t hate her. She still treated Sienna as a friend, even encouraged her to be herself and leave Jaspers gang. And now to top it all off Thalia didn’t even think they cared about her birthday. Sienna wasn’t feeling like the best friend.  
“And Scorpius hasn’t even had a real birthday. He didn’t exactly celebrate with his father. Scorpius and Thalia are such good friends to us so I was thinking… what if we threw them a birthday party?” Rose beamed as they began ascending the staircases to get to the 4th floor.   
“A birthday party? Aren’t parties like against the rules?” Albus asked confused.  
“Well… technically yes but I was thinking, what if we decorated a space in the room of requirement and snuck out tomorrow night. Just us 5 that way we can’t get in trouble? I’m sure I could even persuade some of the house elves to bake us a cake! It’ll be great! What do you guys think?” Rose nervously asked. Sienna grinned in response.  
“Breaking the rules, cake and I don’t have to stay in the slytherin common room? Count me in!” Sienna beamed.   
“Rose Harmony Weasley! Breaking the rules! What would your father say!?” Albus joked Rose rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. Albus laughed as she pushed him aside.  
“I’m in. Scorpius deserves an awesome birthday party and Thalia’s always so kind to us she deserves something back!” Rose beamed and began getting her notebook out as they walked to take notes.  
“Right so I was thinking Sienna you should do decorations tonight since you’re the only one they won’t notice sneaking off. And Albus you can write to Uncle George and Dad and ask them to send us some presents as quick as they can, and you can get Louis’ music thingy to play music on…” Rose fumbled around the word as she planned.  
“You mean his iPod?” Albus laughed as Rose shoved him.  
“I’ll head down to the kitchens during lunch and ask the house elves to help with the cake then I’m going to go and convince James to give me his map for the night so we can see if anyone’s coming. Then tonight I have a special birthday present to prepare… gosh there is a lot to do! Do you think we’ll get it all done by tomorrow?” Rose panicked.  
“Relax Rosie, we’ll get it done.” Albus rested his hands on her shoulders reassuringly as she smiled.

 

“What kind of an emergency are we even talking about Albus?” Thalia demanded the next day as Albus lead her and Scorpius up the grand staircases.  
“Rose didn’t specify she just said there was an emergency and to meet her in the Room of Requirement, so Sienna could come too.” Albus didn’t even stop to explain.  
“Do you think it’s something dangerous…” Scorpius wondered trying to catch up with Albus as he flew up the stairs.  
“Nah, I’m sure it’s not she would have said if it was.” Albus clarified. Scorpius’ eyebrows knit together in confusion.  
“Then why….?” Scorpius began  
“Look lets just get there and find out!” Albus interrupted. When they finally reached the room of requirement Albus held Thalia and Scorpius back.  
“I’ll open it!” He insisted. Scorpius shrugged in response. Albus rushed in when the grand door finally opened. Thalia and Scorpius gave each other a quick glance of confusion as they shrugged and entered anyway.   
“SURPRISE!” They were greeted with party poppers being pulled and some Weasleys Wizard Wheezes mini fireworks exploding. The pair took a look around the room and were stunned to find streamers and balloon hanging everywhere including some balloons on the floor.   
Scorpius noted a snack table in the corner of the bright yellow room filled with a variety of snacks for Weasley’s wizard wheezes and honey dukes, but his eyes instantly fell to the beautiful lilac and green cake raised on a cake stand in the middle of the table. In the centre of the cake were five iced figures, on the left was a black haired green-eyed boy sat leaning towards his friends. Next to him was a girl with wild orange hair held back in a braid, with blue eyes and freckles all around her face, she was smiling at the boy she was sat next too. Scorpius instantly recognised it as himself, a boy with brown eyes and pale blonde hair that flopped over his eyes in exactly the same way Scorpius’ did. Next to Scorpius in the middle was a girl with jet black hair tied into two loosely curled pigtails with crystal blue eyes that was laughing at her friend next to her, he recognised this girl instantly as Thalia with Sienna sat on the far right laughing with Thalia, Sienna’s tight blonde curls draped over her shoulders and her deep brown eyes weren’t nearly as terrifying in icing. A cake with the five of them on.   
Thalia however had first noticed the small pile of shiny wrapped presents and realised this was a birthday party. Her eyes then noticed the bright yellow walls weren’t just covered in streamers and balloons they were covered in pictures Scorpius had taken of them all with his camera. A photo of Albus and Sienna talking by the tree next to the great lake that Scorpius had taken without them knowing. A picture of Rose, Thalia and Sienna in the great hall laughing at a joke Sienna had just made.  
Albus and Scorpius playing an intense game of wizards chess that Rose had stolen Scorpius’ camera to get. Sienna and Thalia walking to class and pushing Scorpius’ camera out of there faces as they noticed him. Rose and Albus sat in the courtyard silently reading next to each other. Thalia and Rose in there dormitory the night they’d stolen Scorpius’ camera and took pictures of themselves for him to find when he developed the pictures. Thalia reading Albus’ tarot cards as he rolled his eyes with a smile. Rose and Scorpius excitedly working on a school project together in the library and snatching the camera back when they realised Albus had it. Scorpius with Rose and Albus this Christmas opening their presents together taken by another member of the Weasley-potter family. Sienna smiling as she leant against the castle wall talked to Albus who was jut out of frame. Rose with her hair in a messy bun frantically studying in the common room. Scorpius reading a muggle comic book on his bed taken by Albus. Albus eating in the great hall and sticking his tongue out when he realised Sienna had been taking a picture of him. Thalia balancing on the courtyard wall and walking across it until she jumped down gracefully at the end. And her favourite picture of all, a picture they’d taken of the five of them down by the lake on the last day before summer last year, Thalia beaming at Sienna was pulling a funny face while Albus laughed at her, Rose sat nicely on the ground smiling up at the camera and Scorpius with a ear splitting grin on his face laughing at his friends.   
“You threw us a birthday party?” Scorpius barely choked out.  
“it was Rose’s idea but we all helped.” Sienna admitted. Scorpius couldn’t help but notice it was kind of odd to see her out of her school uniform. She was now wearing a lime green tank top underneath a dark green plaid shirt with ripped denim shorts and black converses with a black choker around her neck.  
“We felt bad we didn’t celebrate your birthday Thalia and Scorpius has never had a birthday party, so we figured we’d throw you a combined party.” Albus smiled popping another party popper spraying confetti everywhere. Albus was wearing a red English national quidditch team t-shirt underneath a maroon jacket and his old faded black jeans with his worn-out trainers.  
“I know it’s against the rules… but they’ll never catch us in here see!” Rose reminded everyone. Scorpius smiled, noticing how pretty she looked tonight, she had her hair in a neat braid falling down her right shoulder which Scorpius figured must have taken a long time to get that neat. She was wearing a pale blue dress with an oversized royal blue cardigan and navy tights, Scorpius noticed she looked a lot taller with her kitten heal sandals on, and when he studied her face he noticed she was wearing faint makeup, barely noticeable but defiantly there. His heart did a flip flop when she smiled at him. He felt his face getting hotter and decided he had to look away.  
“Come on let’s open presents then!” Albus excitedly declared.  
Scorpius got a box full of school supplies from Albus which included a notebook, some pens, a homework planner, some pencils and erasers a ruler and some coloured pens and highlighters. Scorpius found out Albus had got this stuff from his brother James who last year started selling muggle school supplies to Hogwarts students. Albus thought this would be perfect for Scorpius since he loved school work and he enjoyed figuring out muggle stuff. And Sienna had given him some muggle magic tricks from Weasleys Wizard Wheezes that had been shipped over next day delivery. Scorpius thoroughly enjoyed trying them out at the party making everyone else laugh.  
Thalia had received a book called ‘unfogging the future’ by Cassandra Vablatsky that Albus’ dad had sent him. It used to be a textbook of his back when it was on the syllabus. Thalia who had a particular fascination with divination ever since her terrifying experience in that class found that book a very thoughtful gift. Sienna had given her a packet of Flirting Fancies, one sweet made the person who eat it more confident and flirty for 24 hours. Thalia knew deep in her heart that Sienna had given this to her in hopes that she might move on from Albus and she appreciated the gesture. Rose had given her a dream journal she’d brought from James’ muggle supply store. Which Thalia found interesting and useful as there were just beginning there topic on dream journals in divination.  
After opening presents and watching Scorpius do muggle magic tricks Sienna turned on Louis’ music player and they all started dancing, Scorpius was the first to get tired and want a break so he made his way over to the snack table to get a slice of cake, Rose quickly joined him.  
“How’s the cake?” She asked as she cut herself a slice.  
“Amazing! How did you even get one anyway?” Scorpius asked. Rose leant next to a bite of her slice.  
“I made it, the house elves helped me out a lot though!” Rose admitted.  
“Thank you for doing all this Rose… it’s incredible! I’ve never even had a birthday card before yet alone a party!” Scorpius took it all in.   
“You and Thalia are such amazing people you deserve amazing birthdays” Rose glanced up at Scorpius watching him stare at all the decorations.  
“Actually um… I wanted to give you my present. I got it from James’ there wasn’t a lot of places to get presents on such short notice but… I hope you like it.” Rose reached under the snack table and handed him a dark metallic green present with a lime green bow in the front, as Scorpius teared off the wrapping paper he could see a hard leather bound book but when he undid the strap the pages inside where blank.  
“It’s a journal…” Rose explained “…I thought maybe you could use it to write. I proof read all your essays Scorpius and there quite beautifully written. You have a bit of a talent with words and I figured you might want to try writing in here…” she nervously explained, Scorpius stared at it in shock.  
“You really think I’m good at writing?”   
“I think you have quite the talent for it” Scorpius noticed her cheeks turn a light shade of pink.   
“Thank you. Thank you for everything Rose…” Scorpius paused for a moment letting the beat of the music go through him. “… Who would have thought when we were in first year that you’d be throwing me a birthday party!” Scorpius shook his head incredulously. Rose laughed in response.  
“We were pretty angry back then!” Rose shook her head.  
“We?”   
“Okay, I was pretty angry back then. I was kind of an idiot too…” Rose stared at Thalia Sienna and Albus dancing together in contemplation.  
“Why on earth would you think that? You’re the smartest witch in our class!”   
“Well yeah I’m intellectual but… I let a petty prejudice opinion stop me from making real friends… if I hadn’t grown out of that and seen how wrong it was… I wouldn’t have all you lot as my friends… I wouldn’t have you, and that would be quite lonely because your quite the most amazing person I’ve ever met Scorpius Malfoy.” Rose met his eyes. He stared at her in shock.  
“Do you really mean that?” He faintly asked, she nodded in response. “Well I’m glad you grew out of that too because a world without knowing Rose Weasley seems like a pretty awful world to live in because you’re the most fascinating person I know.” Rose smiled and blushed hard at this for a moment before shaking her head and taking a deep breath to change the subject.  
“I actually got you another present too kind of… I figured no one else would know when your birthday is so I thought I’d tell some people I know would want to give you a happy birthday.” Rose pulled a shiny gold envelope out from under the table too. It was addressed in turquoise letters to Mr Scorpius Malfoy.  
“A birthday card?” Scorpius studied the envelope, Rose giggled.  
“Open it!” Scorpius carefully edged open the letter and found a card with the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team zooming around on the front and in big bold black letters it said ‘Happy Birthday’ it was the inside however that made Scorpius speechless.  
Scorpius,  
HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY!   
Hope you have an amazing day, Rose wrote to us telling us  
About your party. Hope she’s thrown you an awesome party!  
… or at least I hope Albus hasn’t let her make it too lame.  
Anyway, I was thinking about sending something to you,  
But I decided this would be better so I talked to  
Grandma and she agreed wholeheartedly with me.  
For your birthday we want to extent an invitation to spend this  
And every other summer afterwards if you’d like   
With us. We have a spare room you could live in at Christmas  
And summer when your not a Hogwarts. We understand if you’d   
Rather stay with your dad, but the offers there if you want it.  
Grandma knows just how lonely that big mansion must be  
And we want to remind you that you do have family  
Who love and care about you, us. Even if you don’t want   
Too we’re just glad to be able to offer it.  
Have an awesome birthday

Love Teddy & Aunt Andromeda.  
P.S Grandma’s cooking really isn’t that bad and the house  
Has plenty of room for you and I’d love to spend summer with you,  
It would be like having a little brother. (not that Albus and James and Lily  
Aren’t like siblings but having you to LIVE with would be amazing!) – Teddy.

Scorpius’ heart caught in his throat and he found himself unable to speak.  
“What? What is it? I thought you’d like a card from Teddy and Aunt Drom? Did they say something wrong? Do you not like it?” Rose panicked at the tears forming in Scorpius eyes.  
“No Rose it’s wonderfully fantastically beautifully amazing! They’ve offered to let me live with them!” Scorpius suddenly did something without even giving it a second thought. He grabbed Rose and squeezed her in a tight embrace. Rose was sin such a state of shock for a moment she couldn’t so anything but then as she realised what this meant she hugged him back.  
“Oh Scorpius that’s wonderful! You’ll love it with Aunt Drom and Teddy!” Rose said delightedly holding onto him tightly. Scorpius tried to hold back the tears forming in his eyes and he felt Rose’s breath on his shoulder.  
“Thank you Rose Weasley!”


End file.
